Floods along the Mississippi River in spring 2011 rivaled the Great Flood of 1927 in size. Human engineering of the river may be making such floods bigger.
Using tree rings and lake sediments, researchers re-created a history of flooding along the lower Mississippi River extending back to the 1500s. This paleoflood record suggests that the past century of river engineering - intended to minimize flood damage to people living along the river's banks - has instead increased the magnitude of the largest floods by 20 percent, the researchers report April 5 in Nature.
Climate patterns that bring extra rainfall to the region don't account for the dramatic increase in flood size, the team found. "The obvious culprit is that we have really modified the river itself," says Samuel Munoz, a geoscientist at Northeastern University in Boston.
Comment: As evidenced by the waterways around the industrialised world that tend to be filthy and increasingly devoid of life, there is a lot we do not yet know about water. At the same time, as noted in the article, flooding was still on the increase which is probably attributable to our planets entry into an ice age:
- Massive flooding in Europe during the Little Ice Age
- What is the fourth phase of water?
- Washington's Skagit River causes major flooding from highest flow in 11 years
Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: Water: What Do We Really Know?