Tidal/Topo Mapping

Tides in Section

Excursion Hike

Tides/Topo Map

Topographic Mapping

Sediment Flow


Avulsion Sections

MS and Atchafalya carries only 1/2 the sediment used to...significant drowning is evident. 

40% continental US

MS always meandered but levees are preventing river from making next move (silver outlining with blue shading is the general flood zone today).

Dams on MS, Missouri and others have prevented coastal regenerating sediment from counter acting erosion. This loss is scarcely effective to wildlife and the little towns of rich, Acadian culture. As well as the swamps that do much to absorb storms and protect oil industries in NO from storms.

Less Mighty Mississippi

Sediments lessoning through the years. Large reservoirs on Missouri and Arkansas account for biggest loss. 

Sketches

This drawing contrasts the the solidity of the Cheniere to the large amount of saturation in the land near the fresh water cuts

The Mississippi river is a key instrument in the city's successes

These two drawings represent the saturation of land near the Gulf and near the multiple cuts leading from the fresh water towards the Gulf. Near the cuts the land closest to the water seemed to be imaginary, it had the appearance of land but in actuality, it was mostly water

Charcoal drawing completed at Cheniere au Tigre

The Mississippi river slowly changed its course

The Mississippi doubles as a life source and a threat to the city of New Orleans

Lines from a poem describing the Mississippi, in a flow-like pattern

Represents the footsteps taken by Eads on the bottom of the Mississippi
"The sand was drifting like a dense snowstorm at the bottom..." (Pg. 26 Rising Tide)

Sketches

Comparison of wind's effect on tarp and tree branch.








View of spud barges

The Control of Nature
St. Bernard parish


"Slaves with wheelbarrows started the levees. Immigrants with wheelbarrows replaced the slaves. Mule-drawn scrapers replaced the wheelbarrows."

Eads plan for the Mississippi: "parallel jetties in the river's mouth. They pinched the currents. The accelerated water dug out and maintained a navigable channel."



Nomadic vs. permanent- "pre-Aswan Nile... lived on high ground, farmed low ground, and permitted floods to come and go according to the rhythms of nature" vs. "you can't move Vicksburg"

"In southern Louisiana, the bed of the Mississippi River is so far below sea level that a flow of at least a hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet per second is needed to hold back salt water and keep it below New Orleans, which drinks the river."


Water on Mississippi River side of the Old river dam= 18 feet, and Atchafalya side=5 feet

Old River Control

Plan, section, cross section of levee system of Mississippi river.

The river always chooses the shortest/easiest route (steepest gradient) or the path of least resistance.

• East (Teche)
• Lafourche
• Plaquemines
• Atchafalya (before this could happen, the army corps got involved)

Louisiana= sand and silt from previous river flows (about 200 miles wide)

Rising Tide

"They took a certain pride in its awfulness, in the greatness of the river. Confronting it made them larger." (pg. 17)