Coastal communities nationwide are ramping up efforts to restore and protect their shorelines as climate change causes more intense and destructive storms and leads to sea-level rise that puts tens of millions of people at risk.

In Louisiana, dozens of projects are completed, planned or underway, including the River Reintroduction into Maurepas Swamp which will allow water and sediment from the Mississippi River to flow into the 45,000-acre swamp.

The swamp has been dying for nearly a century after levees along the Mississippi river were built and cut off the nutrient supply for one of Louisiana's biggest coastal swamps.

For Brad Miller, the project manager with Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority who is overseeing the Maurepas Swamp project, the work seems to never end and for him that a good thing.

"Even if a project gets cancelled or doesn't go through there is a there's enough projects for the amount of money we have to continue building projects forever", he said.

Recently, state officials canceled a $3 billion project to divert sediment-laden water from the Mississippi River to rebuild part of its coast over objections from the fishing industry and concerns about rising costs.

"Not building these huge ecosystem restoration projects, we'd be going backwards", Miller said, but acknowledged the work that is still ongoing is restoring natural processes which "benefits all of the public", he says.