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THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
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General facts: Third largest drainage basin in the World The Mississippi drains 1/3 of USA and a small part of Canada. Second longest river in the United States: 2,340 miles (3,770 km) The longest river, a Mississippi tributary, is the Missouri: 2,540 miles (4,090 km).
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Location Source of the M River Mouth of M Gulfe of Mexico LA AR MS OK KS MO TN KY INIL IA WI MNND SD NE CO WY MT OH WV PA TX NM
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Courses Mississippi upper courseMississippi lower course
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Its main tributaries:
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Discharge: Annual average rate: 7,000 -20,000 m³/s. Mississippi has only 9% the flow of the Amazon River but is nearly twice that of the Columbia River and almost 6 times the volume of the Colorado River.
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Importance and use of M Nation's most productive agricultural and industrial regions. Nation's chief navigable water route. Animals and plants including freshwater fishes, birds, deer, raccoons, otters, mink, and a variety of forest trees.
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The BIG 6 The BIG 6 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act Hunting, fishing, wildlife observation and photography, and environmental education and interpretation as "priority public uses”
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Threats to the Mississippi River Sediments The Louisiana coast is rapidly sinking into the Gulf, as the re-nourishing sediments no longer pass through the coastal marshes and wetlands. Some 16,000 acres of wetlands are lost there every year, totaling 80% of all wetland losses nationally. Pollution All municipal, industrial and agricultural runoff from the entire river basin is eventually deposited into the Gulf near the Louisiana Coast.: a massive dead zone off the Louisiana coast. 5,000 square miles each year since 1985 Habitat Alteration Landowners dependent on the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control, and destroying floodplain-associated habitats such as bottomland forests critical to many species of nesting and migrating birds.
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Mississippi flood problems Frequency of flooding: almost annual Magnitude of flooding: major floods every 5 to 10 years; extreme flood: 40 years Causes of flooding: heavy rainfall in Appalachian Moutains Consequences of flooding: wide alluvial floodplain, death, habitat evacuation, livestock and crops lost, services destroyed. Case study: the great flood of 1993 (video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIXioecWiJs
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Mississippi flood control Main policy: “hold by levees”. New schemes: dams and storage reservoirs, afforestation By cutting through meanders Large spillways The flow of the major tributaries had been controlled by a series of dams.
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Effectiveness of flood control Levees alone are not sufficient: Great flood of 1993. An effective method: to construct coordinated groups of dams and reservoirs E.g: The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, the reservoirs in the Miami Conservancy District, and dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
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Presentation by Banteaymolu Alebachew Danamona Andrianarimanana.
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