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Craig Colten is a historical geographer who is investigating the relationships among coastal societies, rising sea levels, and cultural landscapes, focussing on the challenges that communities face in relocating or reproducing valued fixtures that will be impacted by the processes driven by climate change. He seeks to answer some basic questions about how society has made decisions about what landscapes they value and what deserves their efforts to protect, preserve, or replicate.
Craig earned his PhD in geography from Syracuse University in 1984 and recently retired from the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University as the Carl O. Sauer Professor. His career followed an unusual path from the Illinois State Museum to PHR Environmental Consultants before he returned to the academy in 1996. His interests have included the long-term management of hazardous wastes, urban environments, and community resilience.
RCC Research Project: Coastal Landscape Change: Abandonment, Dereliction, Preservation, and Regeneration
Selected Publications:
- State of Disaster: An Historical Geography of Louisiana’s Coastal Land Loss Crisis. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2021
- "Adaptive Transitions: The Long Term Perspective on Humans in Changing Coastal Settings." Geographical Review 109, no. 3 (2019): 416–435.
- with Jessica R.Z. Simms, Audrey A. Grismore, and Scott A. Hemmerling. "Social Justice and Mobility in Coastal Louisiana, USA." Regional Environmental Change 18, no. 2 (2018): 371–383.
- Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2014.