Bruce E. Jaffe Sallenger Jr. Jeffrey H. List 1991 The prediction of large-scale coastal change is an extremely important, but distant goal. Here we describe some of our initial efforts in this direction, using historical bathymetric information along a 150 km reach of the rapidly evolving barrier island coast of Louisiana. Preliminary results suggest that the relative sea level rise rate, though extremely high in the area, has played a secondary role in coastal erosion over the last 100 years, with longshore transport of sand-sized sediment being the primary cause. Prediction of future conditions is hampered by a general lack of erosion processes understanding; however, an examination of the changing volumes of sand stored in a large ebb-tidal delta system suggests a continued high rate of shoreline retreat driven by the longshore re-distribution of sand. application/pdf en Publ by ASCE Large-scale coastal evolution of Louisiana's barrier islands text