Magazine Feature. A collection of photography from around the Mississippi River Basin that depicts what life is like in disparate parts of this important and vast river system. By Rolaine Ossman.
Restoring floodplains is a key strategy for communities grappling with annual flooding along the Mississippi River from Iowa to Missouri to Louisiana.
Our new interactive Floodplain Prioritization Tool helps stakeholders make decisions related to water quality, wildlife habitat and flooding in the Mississippi River. Jenny Rogers is a writer and editor for Nature Conservancy magazine, covering books, science and conservation.
Back To Top. Magazine Articles Letting the River Run As floods throughout the Mississippi River Basin become more destructive, communities are changing tactics to give the water a place to go. Reimagining America's River The Mississippi is the meeting point of 7, rivers, creeks and streams flowing through 31 states. For generations, these waters have defined landscapes and shaped cultures. But climate change is driving unprecedented floods and forcing many to rethink how they live with the river.
Reaching Out A church sign in Glen Allan, Mississippi, references multiple years of historic flooding. Crops Around The Southern states produce large crops of soy and cotton, here around a church in rural Mississippi. Resilient Parks Many cities and towns developed along the Mississippi River as trade travel grew from the waterway.
Now cities like Memphis, where the river rolls past at about , cubic feet per second, are engineering riverside parks—including the new Tom Lee Park—that can better endure high water. The Mississippi: Engineered to be more a highway than a river The main stem of the Mississippi River has connected humans for millennia.
Sunset A family walks along the banks of the Mississippi as the sun sets over Memphis. Losses Backwater flooding remained in the Yazoo Basin for months in An abandoned home in the same county shows the water line left by these floods. More extreme weather is putting more people at risk Meanwhile, the risks are rising. Working In Atchison County, Missouri, more than farms—most family-run—grow corn, soy and other crops.
A new levee plan emerges in a Missouri county It was April in Missouri. Here the two canoe near Farrell, Mississippi. In Support of Freshwater. The Conservancy has helped the state reintroduce these flows to reduce flooding near New Orleans and improve habitat. What happens upstream affects those downstream Throughout the basin, decisions made upriver affect those downriver, for better or worse. The commercial fishery requires steady flows of river water to survive.
Hunter Annie Mendoza, an avid squirrel hunter, stands in front of her home. Reconnected Loch Leven, Mississippi, seen through lidar elevation imagery, is a former farm situated in the middle of an oxbow. Last fall, the landowners, with the help of TNC and many other partners, reconnected water flow to Loch Leven, restoring 6, acres of easement-protected wetlands in the process.
Floodprint This map shows the relative frequency of inundations and floods that occurred during spring and winter over 35 years. Also shown are the thousands of miles of levees built to contain the rivers. Army Corps rebuilt new levees farther from the mainstem of the river with support from the landowners, TNC and several partners. Riley Sutton takes GPS coordinates.
Making Room Timothy Davey of the Army Corps observes as workers dredge sand from the river to construct a new levee. Moving the levee back gives the river space to expand into new wetlands that can absorb and slow down future high water. Get the Magazine Sign up to become a member of The Nature Conservancy and you'll receive the quarterly print edition of the magazine as part of your membership. Subscribe Now. This event is still regarded as one of the costiliest natural disasters in U.
Red River Landing recorded its 2nd highest flood crest of A crevasse was dynamited in the levee at Caernarvon, LA, 14 miles below New Orleans to save the city from flooding, but at the expense of destructive flooding of St Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes. Construction starts on the Bonnet Carre Spillway. Located 23 miles upriver from New Orleans in St. Charles Parish. This gate controlled outlet can divert , cubic feet of water per second into Lake Pontchartrain.
The flow, at full capacity, is twice the flow of Niagara Falls. Reserve all-time record crest Bonnet Carre Spillway is completed. It is comprised of bays which are blocked by large wooden pins that are removed by a crane. The crane moves along a track above the pins. Reserve 3rd highest crest of record Flood crests with Baton Rouge at New Orleans did not crest until July 8th at For only the second time in 15 years of existence, the Bonnet Carre Spillway is utilized to stave off a flood at New Orleans.
At first only 10 bays were opened. Eventually, all bays were opened for the first time and remained open for 57 days. The crest at Reserve of The Bonnet Carre Spillway had all bays opened for 38 days. Donaldsonville had 9th highest crest at The largest volume of water to flow down the Mississippi since the flood, the Bonnet Carre Spillway and the Morganza Spillway are both employed. The Bonnet Carre was fully opened for a record 75 days, from April 7th through June 14th.
This was the first time the Morganza Spillway was opened - from April 19th through June 13th. Despite record high flows, stages were not as high as past events.
Red River Landing Discharge or flow past Baton Rouge peaked at 1,, cubic feet per second on May 13th while flow past the City of New Orleans peaked at 1,, cubic feet per second on April 15th.
Discharge through the Bonnet Carre Spillway rose Lake Pontchartrain levels 3 feet above normal, peaking at In what would be the shortest duration for the Bonnet Carre Spillway opening, bays are opened for 15 days. Reserve 8th highest crest of record at For the third time in the s, the Bonnet Carre Spillway was opened for 45 days with all bays involved at peak.
Multiple locations were found. Please select one of the following:. Location Help. News Headlines. Please Share! Customize Your Weather. Privacy Policy. Mississippi River Flooding Weather. If implemented on entire landscapes and done through adequate incentives and compensation, these solutions will generate long-term net benefits for farmers. Engineers , scientists and mayors have been calling for a new system of flood management in the Mississippi region. As the region recovers from flooding and now faces an economic recession due to the coronavirus, this is a pivotal time to build back better.
We can no longer rely on levees and other gray infrastructure alone. Nature-based solutions, and approaches that blend gray and green infrastructure , are not just relevant on the Mississippi River. The number of people around the world facing riverine floods is expected to rise from 65 million in to million in From the United States to Peru, from India to China, nature-based flood protection can help millions of people build resilience to the growing threats of flooding.
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