Last November, weather.com published Losing Louisiana, a look at the people whose homes and land are being lost as the Gulf of Mexico slowly swallows the state’s southern tip. Today, ProPublica continues the story with a massively interactive feature on the subject, documenting the land loss, the history that led the region here and the economic and environmental devastation that may lie in the future.

Using satellite imagery, historic maps and photography, the online feature shows in clear green and blue the changes that have taken place over the 20th and early 21st centuries. Sixteen square miles are lost every year, a change gradual enough to be missed in day-to-day life but brought into stark reality over time.

Much of the country’s oil and gas industry, in addition to the lives and livelihoods of millions of residents, relies on the land that’s sinking. And with the oceans continuing to rise — NOAA predicts an increase in sea level as high as 4.3 feet by the end of the century — the problem isn’t going away anytime soon.

Losing Ground, published by ProPublica and New Orleans' nonprofit newsroom the Lens, can be found here.

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