Flood trends and river engineering on the Mississippi River system

Abstract

.[1] Along >4000 km of the Mississippi River system, we document that climate, land-use change, and river engineering have contributed to statistically significant increases in flooding over the past 100-150 years. Trends were tested using a database of >8 million hydrological measurements. A geospatial database of historical engineering construction was used to quantify the response of flood levels to each unit of engineering infrastructure. Significant climate-and/or land use-driven increases in flow were detected, but the largest and most pervasive contributors to increased flooding on the Mississippi River system were wing dikes and related navigational structures, followed by progressive levee construction. In the area of the 2008 Upper Mississippi flood, for example, about 2 m of the flood crest is linked to navigational and flood-control engineering. Systemwide, large increases in flood levels were documented at locations and at times of wing-dike and levee construction.

Hydraulic and flood-loss modeling of levee, floodplain, and river management strategies, Middle Mississippi River, USA

“…Based on hydraulic principles, Yen (1995) found that for a given flood, levees raise the stage in the channel adjacent to a levee and upstream of it. On the MMR, Pinter et al (2008Pinter et al ( , 2010 and Remo et al (2009) found that levee construction was the second most important contributor to historical flood-level increases, after channel training structures. Dyhouse (1985) assessed the impact of agricultural levees on MMR flood stages, suggesting a 1.5-m levee-driven increase for the 100-year flood.…”

“…Several studies over the past 35 years have concluded that stages for large floods (i.e., C100-year recurrence interval) have risen by as much as *4 m along the MMR, driven primarily by the intensive use of wing dikes and other river training structures to facilitate navigation (Belt 1975;Stevens et al 1975;Criss and Shock 2001;Pinter et al 2000Pinter et al , 2001Pinter et al , 2008Remo and Pinter 2007;. Belt (1975) concluded that constricting the river channel increases flood levels and reducing the protection provided by levees.…”

“…Stevens et al (1975) looked at the geomorphic characteristics of the MMR and found that changes in cross-sectional area due to navigation structures reduced the flow carrying capacity of the river. Pinter et al (2008Pinter et al ( , 2010 developed multivariate statistical models to identify the causal mechanisms driving observed changes in river stage over time. They concluded that the largest factors contributing to increased flooding on the MMR were wing dikes and related navigation structures (Pinter et al , 2010.…”

“…The levee footprint and protection levels for the present data levees were obtained from the Scientific Assessment and Strategy Team's (SAST) levee (SAST 1995). Levee locations and elevations for Scenario 4 were from the database described by Remo et al (2008) and Pinter et al (2008Pinter et al ( , 2010. Data requirements for the Hazus-MH flood-loss model include topographic, infrastructure, and damage-depth curve.…”

Evaluating levee failure susceptibility on the Mississippi River using logistic regression analysis

“…Characteristics of each levee-failure site were derived from digital elevation model (DEM) data, surficial geologic maps (Fisk, 1944;Saucier, 1994), and soil survey maps (NRCS, 2008). In addition, various river engineering records and related data (assembled and described in Pinter et al, 2008Pinter et al, , 2010; see also Table 1) were used to identify locations of levee scour and repairs, local dredging activity, river constriction over time, and revetment locations. Historical land-cover data, riparian corridor information, location of borrow pits, channel width, floodplain width, and channel sinuosity were obtained from the maps identified in Table 1.…”