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Science 13 April 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5822, p. 201
DOI: 10.1126/science.1136780
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Technical Comments

Comment on "Wetland Sedimentation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita"

Torbjörn E. Törnqvist,1* Chris Paola,2 Gary Parker,3 Kam-biu Liu,4 David Mohrig,5 John M. Holbrook,6 Robert R. Twilley4

Turner et al. (Reports, 20 October 2006, p. 449) measured sedimentation from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in coastal Louisiana and inferred that storm deposition overwhelms direct Mississippi River sediment input. However, their annualized hurricane deposition rate is overestimated, whereas riverine deposition is underestimated by at least an order of magnitude. Their numbers do not provide a credible basis for decisions about coastal restoration.

1 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA.
2 St. Anthony Falls Laboratory and Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55414, USA.
3 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
4 Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
5 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
6 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tor{at}tulane.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)