NASA have released images of the New Orleans region showing the impact of Hurricane Katrina, scars of which can still clearly be seen in the marshes 10 years after the storm hit.
The wetlands surrounding Delacroix, a fishing town to the southeast of New Orleans, were some of the hardest hit by the hurricane. Pounding surf, driving winds, and a potent storm surge transformed the marshes by picking apart mats of dead grass, stirring up and disbursing soft underlying sediments, scouring several new channels, and depositing leftover sediment and debris in new areas.
Katrina delivered a massive surge of water that dramatically enlarged lakes, including Lake Lery and Petit Lake and scoured new channels and widened canals in ways that eliminated large amounts of marshland.
The 2015 image, bottom above, shows flood-damaged vegetation has returned to normal colour, but the enlarged waterways have persisted.