![]() ![]() Trees along the river are used to some flooding, but when their trunks and roots are submerged for long periods, they suffer and sometimes die, Houser said. Most sections of the Upper Mississippi River lost forest cover over the last roughly three decades, largely due to flooding and invasive species, the report found. This is more of a problem in the lower portion of the upper basin, in Missouri, Illinois and Iowa, where at least 50% of the river is constrained by levees. ![]() Levees and floodwalls that have been built to prevent flooding have also cut off many wetland areas from the rest of the ecosystem, decreasing ecological diversity. And along the river, an increase in surfaces that are impervious - meaning they don’t allow water to seep through and soak into the ground - is forcing more water into the river and its tributaries. The upper Midwest is projected to get wetter into the future, particularly during winter and spring, according to the report. Higher discharge, or put simply, more water running through the river, was the most widespread change observed throughout the Upper Mississippi River system, the report’s authors wrote.Ĭlimate change - which is causing heavier rainfall, more snow and higher temperatures - as well as land use practices and built constraints like levees all likely play a role, according to the report, though it’s not entirely understood how much each is contributing. Here is a look at some of the report’s key findings. “By having a long-term data set over a lot of space, we can really begin to understand many aspects of (the river’s) changes,” Houser said. But the new analysis - spanning decades and examining more than 800 miles of river - can provide a clearer long-term picture, said Jeff Houser, a USGS research ecologist and science director of the long-term resources monitoring program. You can’t just say that the river is good.” “It just changes all the time, so you can’t just say that the river is bad. “The river is complex, side to side even, north to south,” Wallace said. Wallace said this report can help people understand how the river has changed in different places over time. Other organizations study and publish reports on the river, such as America’s Watershed Initiative, which issued a C- grade for the health of the entire basin in its 2020 report card, citing environmental pollution, runoff from farmland and ongoing funding needs for aging locks, dams and ports. “Clean water management techniques that we’ve put on the landscape have worked,” Wallace said, but “the changing climate and changing hydrology makes the future unknown even though we have these long-term trends.” Kirsten Wallace, executive director of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, said the findings are a good start to understanding what has impacted the river habitat. It is the third of its kind produced by the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, which was created in 1986 to conduct long-term monitoring of the basin and focus on habitat rehabilitation. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, Army Corps of Engineers and Upper Mississippi River Basin Association. The report, released last week, shows increasingly wetter conditions in the Upper Mississippi over the past few decades, a trend that - spurred by climate change and land-use practices - looks likely to continue. It’s an ecologically diverse area, consisting of wetlands, marshes and forests. The upper basin is the natural floodplain that spans from Minnesota through Wisconsin and Iowa to Cairo, Illinois. High water and longer-lasting flooding are changing the habitat along the Upper Mississippi River, according to a new report analyzing nearly 30 years of data. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. ![]()
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