Regional Impacts of Levee Construction and Channelization, Middle Mississippi River, USA

The Mississippi River travels approximately 3780 km from its headwaters in Minnesota, USA to the Gulf of Mexico, draining roughly 3,210,000 km2. Since European settlement, humans have significantly impacted both the river basin and the river itself. Primarily under the stewardship of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), river-engineering activities have focused on navigation improvement and flood control and have included snag removal, bank clearing, meander cutoffs, dredging, bank stabilization, channel constriction, levee construction, and dam construction [1].