Floodplain Vegetation Management Implications for Mississippi River Flooding
Abstract
Floodplains provide numerous ecosystem and societal benefits, including storage of flood waters. However, levees along many rivers restrict the area of the floodplain in an attempt to reduce the risks associated with flooding. The Mississippi River has an extensive levee system, but the distance between the levees on either side of the river averages 10.5 km within the 1,150 km reach from Cairo, IL to Baton Rouge, LA. These vast floodplains contain a mixture of forests and farmlands primarily managed by private landowners. Here we present modeling that demonstrates the effects of varying vegetation management strategies on flood heights as well as the distribution of flood flows between the main channel and floodplains. Modeling results show that vegetation management can result in flood height differences of as much as 0.6 m, and change the distribution of flow between the main channel and the floodplain by more than 10%. The implications for sediment capture and connectivity of secondary channels and oxbow lakes are also discussed.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMH154...06D
- Keywords:
-
- 1813 Eco-hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1820 Floodplain dynamics;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1825 Geomorphology: fluvial;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS