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Prosthetic Delta
If we could divert certain segments of the Lower Mississippi River into subsidiary canals, we'd "create up to 1000 square kilometres of new wetlands between New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, forming a vital storm surge buffer against hurricanes," New Scientist reports. It's prosthetic deltas as the future of landscape design:  The proposed diversion would cut breaches into a levee some 150 km south of New Orleans, Louisiana, and 30 km above where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. With the diversions in place, flooding would cause the river to empty into shallow saltwater bays on either side of the river, releasing sediment-rich water to produce new deltas.
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Prosthetic Delta
Gregory
 Gregory created this thread 21 months ago

If we could divert certain segments of the Lower Mississippi River into subsidiary canals, we'd "create up to 1000 square kilometres of new wetlands between New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, forming a vital storm surge buffer against hurricanes," New Scientist reports.
It's prosthetic deltas as the future of landscape design:

 

 

    The proposed diversion would cut breaches into a levee some 150 km south of New Orleans, Louisiana, and 30 km above where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. With the diversions in place, flooding would cause the river to empty into shallow saltwater bays on either side of the river, releasing sediment-rich water to produce new deltas.
 
 
 
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  • Skye
    Skye Skye commented | 21 months ago
     
    By 2100 I'd hope we'd be able to come up with improvements to human activity that worked with the changing nature of the river instead of contorting it further.
     
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  • Patricia
    Patricia Patricia commented | 21 months ago
     
    First, the Mississippi is not very sediment rich since it has been leveed along its entire length.

    This sounds wrong to me. If you put up levees along its entire length, wouldn't this mean that the river retains all or most of its sediment? And though contained it can still receive water (and sediment!) from the entirety of its drainage basin (which of course is huge)?

    If it ain' very sediment rich, what's all that thing getting dump into the gulf then?

    Or am I the one who's wrong about something?

    Second, we are losing the wetlands because of geologic subsidence of the whole of south LA, not because of erosion from the edges of a stable base. Building up the edges, even if you can, does not help with the lose of elevation in the center, i.e., the sinking away of New Orleans.

    New Orleans needn't be saved. The center can yield to the periphery.
     
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  • Vickie
    Vickie Vickie commented | 21 months ago
     
    Of course, all of this ignores two points. First, the Mississippi is not very sediment rich since it has been leveed along its entire length. Second, we are losing the wetlands because of geologic subsidence of the whole of south LA, not because of erosion from the edges of a stable base. Building up the edges, even if you can, does not help with the lose of elevation in the center, i.e., the sinking away of New Orleans.
     
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