The Development of a Plan of Study to Evaluate the Physical and Biological Effects of Increased Navigation Traffic on the Mississippi River

by David E. Leake, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St Louis, United States,
Thomas M. Keevin, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St Louis, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Hydraulic Engineering

Abstract:

An integrity team prepared a Plan of study (POS) that represents the first comprehensive effort on the Upper Mississippi River (UMR), to identify and quantify impacts associated with commercial and recreational traffic. The Plan of study consists of a series of work units comprised of both laboratory and field studies which will identify and quantify impacts to the following biological resources: adult fish, larval fish, freshwater mussels, aquatic macrophytes, macroinvertebrates, waterfowl, algae, side channels and backwaters. However, these biological impacts can generally be determined only if the hydraulic forces producing them are also measured and better understood. An interagency coodinating committee has been proposed to oversee the study process and to monitor study results annually. The results of these studies should be directly usable in current and future planning activities within the UMR and, to some extent, could be used to identify vessel related physical and biological impacts throughout the nation's entire inland waterway system.

Subject Headings: Biological processes | Rivers and streams | Field tests | Water transportation | Traffic analysis | Navigation (waterway) | Laboratory tests | Mississippi River

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