Birds Point–New Madrid Floodway: Redesign, reconstruction, and restoration

Excerpt

The year 2011 was one of extreme weather, with 14 events in the United States causing losses in excess of one billion dollars each (Coumou and Rahmstorf 2012). The southeast Missouri region adjacent to the Lower Mississippi River well illustrates the local impacts on agriculture and human settlements when early snow melt and record rainfall over the Ohio River Valley and lands in the Lower Mississippi River result in saturated soils, extreme flooding, and damage to crop production and community infrastructure (Olson and Morton 2012a; 2012b). The May 2011 deliberate breaching of the levees in the New Madrid Floodway, Missouri, was a planned adaptation response to exceptional flooding conditions with the goal to reduce excess river pressure and prevent levee failures along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers (Camillo 2012). Climate scientists observe that 2011 was not unique, finding that the last decade was likely the warmest globally for at least a millennium, triggering a period of precipitation and heat wave extremes (Coumou and Rahmstorf 2012). As long-term weather patterns become more variable and unpredictable, there is much that can be learned from reevaluating past adaptation strategies and the exploration of new alternatives.