Mississippi River Levee Research Articles

Variable pathways, residence time, and geochemical evolution of seepage beneath the Mississippi River levee during the 2011, 2015, and 2016 floods

Seepage beneath artificial levees is a common concern during flooding events. Risk of levee failure is elevated when piping erodes channels beneath the levee, evidenced by the formation of sand boils where transported sediments discharge. Along the lower Mississippi River, pathways of floodwater beneath the levee vary with surface geology, following deeper paths where the levee overlies fine-grained channel-fill deposits, and shallower (higher risk) paths where it overlies sand-bar deposits. Shallow, organic-rich alluvial aquifers are often geochemically stratified into upper oxic and lower anoxic zones, raising the possibility of using the geochemical signatures of discharging water from sand boils to differentiate flow pathways. A preliminary investigation north of Vicksburg, MS, (USA) during the 2011 Mississippi River flood demonstrated the potential of using geochemistry to identify deep and shallow pathways, though the study was limited to cation and trace element analyses. Sampling during the 2015 and 2016 floods for temperature, conductivity, redox potential (Eh), dissolved oxygen (DO), major ions, trace elements, tritium, and stable isotope ratios of oxygen, hydrogen, and strontium, facilitated a greater understanding of the nature of flow and geochemical evolution of groundwater in this environment. Characteristics of deeper flow pathways (relative to shallow) included (1) lower Eh and higher Fe and As, reflecting anoxic conditions and high-Fe sediments, (2) proportional increases in Fe and HCO3, indicating reductive dissolution of Fe-oxyhydroxides, and (3) higher ratios of Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca, reflecting differences in the elemental composition of minerals with depth. Tritium results indicate that subsurface flow pathways are dynamic, shifting spatially with the rapid changes in hydraulic gradients during and between flooding events. Estimated residence times of groundwater discharging from sand boils and relief wells ranged from essentially zero (discharge of concurrent floodwater) up to a quarter century. Lower strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) were observed in the aquifer relative to river water, though with no clear variation with flow depth. Oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratios (δ18O and δ2H) show evidence of partial evaporation prior to recharge, also with no apparent variation with subsequent flow depth.

Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture by Justin A. Nystrom

Reviewed by: Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Cultureby Justin A. Nystrom Diane C. Vecchio Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture. By Justin A. Nystrom. Southern Foodways Alliance Studies in Culture, People, and Place. ( Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 234. Paper, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5355-5; cloth, $79.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5356-2.) Each year, thousands of visitors travel to New Orleans to listen to jazz, to marvel at the French-inspired architecture, and to sample the city's celebrated food, from beignets to crawfish étouffée. As the former capital of French Louisiana, New Orleans retains a strong identification with French culture, French place-names, and French-Creole food. However, in Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture, Justin A. Nystrom makes a compelling case for the influence of Sicilian immigrants on the shaping of food culture in New Orleans. Food culture in the Crescent City has ranged from Sicilian corner grocery stores and restaurants to a transoceanic shipping business of Sicilian lemons that placed Sicilian immigrants at the center of a dynamic international commerce. Nystrom maintains that Italian influence on a nascent restaurant culture in New Orleans happened so long ago that it is now almost forgotten, and he makes an important corrective to that perception with a convincing analysis that demonstrates how Sicilian immigrants and their descendants were responsible for making New Orleans a destination for food tourism. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Sicilian immigrants opened oyster saloons and gradually moved into larger-scale Italian restaurants. Several of these early Italian restaurants were the predecessors of the city's renowned dining establishments that today attract the discerning food patron. Oyster saloons drew some of the first Sicilians into the restaurant business, many of whom were from Ustica, a small island north of Palermo. John Astredo's restaurant and leisure empire began in 1870, when his establishments featured fried, broiled, roasted, and scalloped oysters. The Tranchina family started out with a fruit stand, graduated to an oyster saloon, and eventually became proprietors of restaurants and hotels. Emile Commander opened the Palace Saloon and Restaurant in 1893, while other Sicilians operated increasingly sophisticated restaurants, making them the most highly patronized in the city. Italian eateries such as LaNasa fused the fresh bounty of the Gulf of Mexico, including pompano and oysters, with traditional Italian dishes to create a creole Italian fare that soon dominated New Orleans restaurant culture. The early restaurant business owners in the city constituted a segment of the Sicilian elite, joining the early importers and merchants who contributed to the culinary reputation of the city. The chapter on the Sicilian trade of Mediterranean citrus is one of the finest. Nystrom provides a sophisticated analysis of an earlier migration of Sicily's merchant class to the Gulf South starting in the 1830s, when Sicily lemons began to be sold on the Mississippi River levee. A circular global trade originating in Sicily brought the founding generation of Sicilian lemon traders to New Orleans. Nystrom does not neglect the more familiar and celebrated issues associated with Sicilians in New Orleans, such as the Italians who worked on the sugar plantations and the existence of the Black Hand and Sicilian [End Page 683]criminality. But these issues do not take center stage in his analysis of Sicilians in New Orleans. While the author's analysis of the Sicilian restaurant and food business in New Orleans is broad and detailed, the book would benefit from a more thoughtful analysis of women's roles in these business endeavors. To his credit, Nystrom examines Lucy Ventura Von der Haar's grocery emporium in great detail, but Italian women often played significant behind-the-scenes roles in the restaurant and grocery business in America. Nystrom should also take into account another cultural tradition that demonstrates Sicilian food influence in New Orleans, the St. Joseph's Day Table, celebrated every March 19 to honor St. Joseph, who provided relief to the starving peasants during a Sicilian famine. Nystrom has written an important book that examines the migration, Americanization, and...

Screening Mississippi River Levees Using Texture-Based and Polarimetric-Based Features from Synthetic Aperture Radar Data

This article reviews the use of synthetic aperture radar remote sensing data for earthen levee mapping with an emphasis on finding the slump slides on the levees. Earthen levees built on the natural levees parallel to the river channel are designed to protect large areas of populated and cultivated land in the Unites States from flooding. One of the signs of potential impending levee failure is the appearance of slump slides. On-site inspection of levees is expensive and time-consuming; therefore, a need to develop efficient techniques based on remote sensing technologies is mandatory to prevent failures under flood loading. Analysis of multi-polarized radar data is one of the viable tools for detecting the problem areas on the levees. In this study, we develop methods to detect anomalies on the levee, such as slump slides and give levee managers new tools to prioritize their tasks. This paper presents results of applying the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) quad-polarized L-band data to detect slump slides on earthen levees. The study area encompasses a portion of levees of the lower Mississippi River in the United States. In this paper, we investigate the performance of polarimetric and texture features for efficient levee classification. Texture features derived from the gray level co-occurrence (GLCM) matrix and discrete wavelet transform were computed and analyzed for efficient levee classification. The pixel-based polarimetric decomposition features, such as entropy, anisotropy, and scattering angle were also computed and applied to the support vector machine classifier to characterize the radar imagery and compared the results with texture-based classification. Our experimental results showed that inclusion of textural features derived from the SAR data using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) features and GLCM features provided higher overall classification accuracies compared to the pixel-based polarimetric features.

Effects of rainfall, geomorphological and geometrical variables on vulnerability of the lower Mississippi River levee system to slump slides

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the importance of rainfall and various geomorphological and geometrical factors to the vulnerability of earthen levees to slump slides. The study was performed using a database including 34 slump slides that occurred in the lower Mississippi River levee system from 2008 to 2009. The impact of rainfall within the six months prior to slide occurrence was studied for 23 slides for which an accurate occurrence date was available. Several variables were used to develop a logistic regression model to predict the probability of slump slide occurrence. The proposed model was verified for both slide and non-slide cases. The regression analysis depicts the impact of channel width, river sinuosity index, riverbank erosion, channel shape condition and distance to river. Excluding the sinuosity index, the impact of the other independent variables examined was found to be significant. Occurrence of riverbank erosion around the slide locations was the most significant predictor factor. A channel width of less than 1000 m was ranked as the second most significant variable. The proposed model can aid in locating high-risk areas on levees in order to take prompt protective measures, increase monitoring efforts and enable early response under emergency conditions.

Morphodynamics of the erosional phase of crevasse-splay evolution and implications for river sediment diversion function

Despite being a primarily depositional landform, a crevasse splay experiences an initial evolutionary phase that is primarily erosional as sediment-laden river water spills from a main river channel and incises a new route through the river banks and levee into an interdistributary basin or floodplain. This phase sets the dimensions and the conveyance properties of the crevasse, which, in turn, influences the continued expansion or closure of the crevasse channel. However, little is known about the controlling morphodynamics or how the erosional processes transition to depositional processes during this phase. The objective of this study is to investigate these phenomena at the West Bay sediment diversion (Louisiana, USA) using coupled field observations and numerical modeling. The West Bay diversion was cut into a lower Mississippi River levee to mimic the function of a crevasse-splay, i.e., to divert river water and sediment to an adjacent receiving basin for land-building purposes. Bathymetric measurements show that the diversion channel experienced significant natural morphologic evolution during the initial decade (2004–2014). Hydrodynamic and sediment transport modeling suggests that this evolution initially increased the discharge of flow and sediment through the crevasse as the channel became wider and deeper and altered its orientation relative to the main river flow direction. After 5years, the model results predict that further evolution led to monotonically reduced diversion discharges. During this time, natural and engineered sediment deposition in the receiving basin decreased predicted basin-flow velocities and promoted a backwater effect that reduced the sediment transport capacity of the diversion channel. Observations during the final 2years show that much of the initial erosion around the diversion had abated indicating that diversion morphology may have stabilized. A modeling sensitivity analysis confirmed that the observed changes to channel geometry and orientation likely promoted flows of water and sediment through the diversion while increases in basin-bed elevation would have had a contrary effect. The morphodynamic evolution of the West Bay diversion documented in this study presents a model indicative of the erosional phase of crevasse-splay evolution in a deltaic distributary fluvial network. Study results offer an analogue on how an engineered river sediment diversion constructed for coastal restoration may function during its first years of operation and suggest that the desired land-building processes may take time to become established.

Earthen levee slide detection via automated analysis of synthetic aperture radar imagery

The main focus of this research is to detect vulnerabilities on the Mississippi river levees using remotely sensed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. Unstable slope conditions can lead to slump slides, which weaken the levees and increase the likelihood of failure during floods. On-site inspection of levees is expensive and time-consuming, so there is a need to develop efficient automated techniques based on remote sensing technologies to identify levees that are more vulnerable to failure under flood loading. Synthetic Aperture Radar technology, due to its high spatial resolution and potential soil penetration capability, is a good choice to identify problem areas along the levee so that they can be treated to avoid possible catastrophic failure. This research analyzes the ability of detecting the slump slides on the levee with NASA JPL’s Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) data. The main contribution of this research is the development of a machine learning framework to (1) provide improved knowledge on the status of the levees, (2) detect anomalies on the levee sections, (3) provide early warning of impending levee failures, and (4) develop efficient tools for levee health assessment. Textural features have been computed and utilized in the classification tasks to achieve efficient levee characterization. The RX anomaly detector, a training-free unsupervised classification algorithm, detected the active slides on the levee at the time of image acquisition and also flagged some areas as “anomalous,” where new slides appeared at a later date.

Slurry trenches and relief wells installed to strengthen Ohio and Mississippi river levee systems

I n April of 2011, the Ohio River began flooding farmland and cities in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, which were not protected by levees. Cairo, Illinois, and many of the other cities on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers protected by levees did not flood, but their levees and floodwalls were in danger of failing due to the constant water pressure against and under the levees and floodwalls. The extra weight of the river at flood stage pushes water under-neath levees and floodwalls increasing the potential for sand boils and undermining the strength of the levee and its capacity to hold back floodwater (Camillo 2012; Morton and Olson 2015). By early May of 2011, the Ohio River gage at Cairo, Illinois, had reached 18.7 m (61.7 ft) (NOAA 2012), and floodwaters were starting to put significant pressure on both Ohio and Mississippi river levee and floodwall systems to the north of Cairo (figure 1). Although, the New Madrid Floodway south of the Ohio and Mississippi river confluence at Cairo was deliberately breached on May 2, 2011, by the United States Army Corps Engineers (USACE) to reduce levee pressure, the levee system north of Cairo, the levee system south of Hickman, Kentucky,…

Mahalia Jackson Meets the Wise Men: Defining Jazz at the Music Inn

As a church-based vocalist, as a recording artist who specialized in a form of black vernacular music, and as a pop-cultural celebrity, Mahalia Jackson (1911–72) had the unusual distinction of being discovered three times. Jackson was born and raised in an uptown New Orleans neighborhood bordering the Mississippi River levee where her family attended Mt. Moriah Baptist Church. Migrating to Chicago in late 1931 at the age of twenty, she sang in the choir at Greater Salem Baptist Church and in a pioneering gospel group, the Johnson Singers, before going on to perform almost exclusively as a soloist.1 Jackson built her reputation gradually on the Chicago church circuit and as a traveling song-plugger for pathbreaking gospel song composer Thomas A. Dorsey. She made her first commercial recordings for Decca in 1937, but her true breakthrough came in January 1948 with the unprecedented success of her double-sided single for Apollo Records, “Move on up a Little Higher,” which outsold Apollo's better promoted jazz, rhythm and blues, and pop releases on the way to becoming black gospel's first million-seller. Four months after “Move on up a Little Higher” broke nationally, Jackson was presented by New York gospel promoter Johnny Myers at Harlem's Golden Gate Auditorium on 11 April 1948 in an “East vs. West” battle in song with Brooklyn-based gospel star Ernestine Washington. Jackson returned to the Golden Gate in January 1949 to headline a pair of sold-out concerts, and several additional local concerts were scheduled to meet the overwhelming demand. Jackson's name was still largely unknown among white audiences, but the enthusiasm generated by her Apollo recordings and her New York triumphs brought her unequaled national acclaim as a soloist among black gospel fans. An account in the Norfolk Journal and Guide captured the thirty-seven-year-old singer's growing hype: Mahalia Jackson, famed as the nation's Queen of Gospel Singers, arrived in New York this last week on tour and has smashed local attendance records in churches and auditoriums, winning new laurels and thousands of new followers for the magnetic young spiritual singer. Jamming in New York's Golden Gate auditorium to capacity twice in one day, Miss Jackson sang many numbers that are loved by hundreds of thousands as she sings them on Apollo records, including “Move On Up a Little Higher,” her recent “Dig a Little Deeper” and her new rendition of “I'm Tired.”2

RECONNAISSANCE LEVEL STUDY MISSISSIPPI STORM SURGE BARRIER

This paper reports a reconnaissance level study of a storm surge barrier in the Mississippi River. Historical hurricanes have shown storm surge of several meters along the Mississippi River levees up to and upstream of New Orleans. Future changes due to sea level rise and subsidence will further increase the risk of flooding due to hurricane storm surge. A surge barrier downstream of New Orleans has been considered as an alternative to levee raise along the Mississippi River. Hydraulic computations show that the build-up of water behind the barrier due to the Mississippi
 River flow is (much) lower than the hurricane surge protruding up the river in the no-barrier situation. The barrier will probably eliminate the need to upgrade the system upstream of the barrier while providing the same level of hurricane risk reduction. A hybrid barrier (a combination of different gate types) with a primary swing gate for navigation (and flow) and secondary lift gates to accommodate for flow is a technically feasible alternative. The barrier remains open for almost the entire year and would only to be closed during severe tropical events (say once every 2 - 3 years). Several measures are included in the conceptual design to mitigate the navigation impact. The construction costs of the barrier are estimated at $1.6 - 2.6 billion. It is recommended to compare the investment costs of a barrier including adjacent tie-ins to the existing HSDRRS to the costs of upgrading and maintaining the levee system throughout the city of New Orleans.

Predicting shallow surficial failures in the Mississippi River levee system using airborne hyperspectral imagery

Shallow surficial failures or levee slides in the Mississippi River levee system are very common. There is currently no system to identify or predict the location of these slides before they occur. Studies of slide occurrence mechanisms suggest that probable slide-affected areas are characterized by anomalous vegetation. Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager II (CASI II) imagery was analysed for selected levee sites in association with slide inventory data and field observations. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Red edge Vegetation Stress Index (RVSI) and Red Edge Position Index (REP) were calculated from the acquired CASI II imagery. The vegetation indices were used to locate the stressed or anomalous vegetation and predict levee slides. The statistical significance of the predictors was determined by logistic regression. All predictors were found statistically significant for developing a slide prediction model. The slide prediction model was developed by combining the single predictors, categorized vegetation indices, into a model based on all three predictors. Percentage of Search Area Reduction (PSAR) and Failure Index (FI) were used to evaluate the performance of the slide prediction model. Evaluation of the model performance shows that it achieves a maximum FI of 0.43 and PSAR of 99.5.

A comparison analysis of edge-of-field run-off from two sugarcane fields

Agricultural run-off is an important source of nonpoint source pollution. Surface run-off driven by rainfall events was analyzed at two sugarcane fields (SC1 and SC2) in Louisiana, USA. The study site was within a watershed confined by the Mississippi River levee and a drainage canal (St. James Canal). In total, 14 representative rainfall run-off events were analyzed. For comparison with onsite monitoring, a modeling technique was used to estimate run-off. The results show that run-off/rainfall ratios at SC1 were significantly higher (p < 0.0001, n = 14) than at SC2, probably mainly due to a higher sand content of the soil and a higher infiltration rate at SC2 than at SC1. Model-calculated run-off showed substantial overestimation compared with the monitoring results, especially at SC2. Comparison analysis suggests that significant infiltration following precipitation is expected in sandy fields, and water discharge into the groundwater aquifer cannot be ignored. Without considering groundwater discharge in model algorism, the model calculation may significantly overestimate actual surface run-off.

The ups and downs of levees: GPS–based change detection, Middle Mississippi River, USA

Changes in levee-crest elevations were measured along 328 km of Mississippi River levees between St. Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, in 1998 and 2007. We also compared 1998 and 2007 survey data with 50 yr fl ood elevation profi les to assess levels of levee protection. Levee heights, stability, and safety are nationwide concerns, especially since Hurricane Katrina and fl oodwall failures in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005. The majority of surveyed levees were stable at the centimeter to decimeter level during the 9 yr measurement interval. Change was measured in other areas, including increases of as much as 1.49 m and decreases of as much as 1.26 m between 1998 and 2007. The increases corresponded to local crevasse repairs, smallscale road maintenance, and larger levee-raising projects. Decreases in levee elevations are interpreted as small-scale surface erosion and larger compaction or subsidence of levee and/or foundation materials. Levee crests in 2007 were locally as much as 2.0 m below the 50 yr fl oodgrade elevations. Levee degradation reduces protection levels for fl oodplain residents, often without easily visible symptoms. Intentional levee raising without necessary studies, engineering, or permitting has a range of potential negative impacts including both a false sense of security and the potential for exporting fl ood risk to neighboring levee communities. Regional surveying of levee elevations and change over time can provide a preliminary tool for assessing levee conditions, stability, and compliance with levee regulations.

Is It Feasible to Build New Land in the Mississippi River Delta?

What if the Mississippi River levees were cut below New Orleans? What if much of the water and sediment were allowed to flow out and build new deltas? Could deltaic land loss be reversed, and indeed restored?Using a conservative sediment supply rate and a range of rates of sea level rise and subsidence, a physically based model of deltaic river sedimentation [Kim et al., 2009] predicts that approximately 700–1200 square kilometers of new land (exposed surface and in‐channel freshwater habitat) could be built over a century (Figure 1).

“Rough Mens” in “the Toughest Places I Ever Seen”: The Construction and Ramifications of Black Masculine Identity in the Mississippi Delta's Levee Camps, 1900–1935

This article examines the “levee camp” as a social and cultural site for reconstituting rural black workers' masculine identities in the early twentieth-century Mississippi-Arkansas Delta. The construction of the Mississippi River's levees during this period depended heavily on the labor of black mule-drivers drawn from the Delta's cotton plantations. In spite of this dependency, the levee camps' exploitative commissaries and harsh disciplinary violence quashed workers' efforts to reclaim a sense of autonomy that was increasingly denied them on the region's plantations. However, partly in response to the perceived erosion of their authority within the sharecropper family, levee workers successfully used the notorious after-hours culture of the levee camps to construct a hyper-masculine image of themselves as “rough mens” who had been to the levee camps, enjoyed the sexual attention of camp women, and were manly enough to survive the murderous violence of white bosses and other “rough mens” alike. Using a series of 1930s labor investigations as well as early Delta blues hollers and songs about the levee camps, this article shows how black workers' efforts to cultivate this hyper-masculine levee worker image ultimately proved detrimental to their class interests. Levee contractors and foremen welcomed levee camp gambling, prostitution, drinking, and fighting as ways of reducing workers' wages and maintaining labor control in the camps. Ultimately, the levee camps provide a useful example of an all-male work site where gender had important, if unintended, ramifications for workers' class position.

Raising the Bar for Levees

Engineers have worked for millennia to control natural flooding through dams and levees. While the fundamental principles and challenges of holding back water have not changed, the tools brought to the task continue to evolve. Among other tools being tested and implemented today are elaborate sensors to detect stresses and strains within structures, and impermeable lining materials known as geomembranes, which are laid underneath the structure before it is built to prevent water seepage.

Performance of Relief Well Systems along Mississippi River Levees

In the late 1940s, the principal levees along both sides of the Mississippi River from Alton to Gale, Ill., were raised to a 1-in-50-year flood level—a 500-year frequency in urban areas. In 1950, the St. Louis District initiated an investigation of seepage beneath these levees. As a result of this investigation, 2,480 relief wells were installed along 292 mi of mainline and tributary levees during the 1950s. During the flood of 1993, the stage of the Mississippi River along the mainline levees equaled or exceeded the design stage, the highest river level to which the middle Mississippi River levees had ever been subjected. The writers were responsible for collecting and analyzing the data and information relating to the condition, efficiency, and performance of the relief wells installed in the 1950s along the above stretch of the Mississippi River. The study showed that the relief well systems that were designed and constructed during the 1950s with limited design data performed successfully and prevented any significant sand boils or piping for a design river stage. The parameters involved in design and performance of the underseepage control systems were largely confirmed within the normal variations of the parameters involved and field conditions. From analysis of the data collected during the 1993 high water, a program for maintenance and repair of the relief well system was developed. This paper presents a brief description of the phenomena of underseepage, the parameters involved in the design and performance of underseepage control measures, and a comparison of design values with field performance for a 50-year high water against 300 mi of Mississippi River levees in 1993, of which 45 miles are now protected from underseepage by relief wells. This paper also describes the importance of not only building levees high enough to hold back the design high water of a river but also the design, construction, and maintenance of relief well systems to prevent failure of levees as a result of sand boils and/or piping for the various subsurface conditions that exist along levees in the alluvial valleys of major rivers.

Invertebrate Use of Natural Tree Cavities and Vertebrate Nest Boxes

Thirty-nine taxa of invertebrates used nest boxes and natural cavities in three mid-South forest habitats. Twelve of the 16 genera identified used nest boxes more frequently than natural cavities. Only carpenter ants (Camponotus sp.) (Formicidae) and termites (Kalotermitidae) used natural cavities more frequently than nest boxes. Wood roaches (Parcoblatta spp.) (Blattidae), southern green stink bugs (Nezara viridula L.) (Pentatomidae) and paper wasps (Polistes spp.) (Vespidae) were the most common invertebrates found in nest boxes. Four species exhibited preference for one or more of 16 characteristics of cavities and the surrounding habitat. Greater use of nest boxes than natural cavities by invertebrates may be due to a desirable nest box microclimate. INTRODUCTION Natural tree cavities are used as nesting, resting or feeding sites by many species of invertebrates; but availability of natural cavities is decreasing because bottomland hardwood forests are being replaced with soybeans (Glycine max (L.) Merrill), and plantations of eastern cottonwoods (Populus deltoides Marsh.) and American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis L.), and upland forests are being more intensively managed for timber production. Removal of trees with natural cavities in a stand removes the habitat necessary for invertebrates which require natural cavities, thereby reducing their populations and perhaps the populations of their predators. Maintenance of some natural cavities in a stand may be necessary to provide habitat for invertebrates which could be important food sources for other wildlife such as carpenter ants (Camponotus spp.) (Formicidae) for pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus L.) (Conner et al., 1975). Nest boxes can supplement natural cavities for many cavity-using species (Bellrose et al., 1964; Nixon and Donohoe, 1979; McComb, 1979). A few investigators have reported use of nest boxes or natural cavities by invertebrates (McAtee, 1931; Nicholson, 1941; Allen, 1952; Klein, 1955; Flyger and Cooper, 1967), but no one has quantified invertebrate use of nest boxes and natural cavities. It is important that invertebrate use of artificial and natural cavities be quantified so habitat loss by cutting of cavity-bearing trees, as well as the benefits of box erection, can be assessed on the basis of all terrestrial fauna, and not just vertebrates, as is so frequently the case. The objectives of this study were: (1) to compare use of nest boxes with use of natural cavities in a bottomland hardwood stand, a cottonwood plantation and an upland pine-hardwood stand, and (2) to determine what -cavity characteristics were important to cavity-using invertebrates. STUDY AREAS A mature, mixed bottomland hardwood stand (Ben Hur) located on Louisiana State University Ben Hur Research Farm, East Baton Rouge Parish, La., was used as one habitat type. The overstory is dominated by water oak (Quercus nigra L.), pignut hickory (Carya glabra (Mill.) Sweet), American elm (Ulmus americana L.), sugarberry (Celtis laevigata (Willd.) and sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.); the midstory by box elder (Acer negundo L.) and bluebeech (Carpinus caroliniana Walt.); the understory by switch cane (Arundinaria gigantea (Walt.) Muhl.) and poison ivy (Rhus radicans L.). Ben Hur is an unmanaged forest protected from backwater flooding by the Mississippi River levee system. 'Present address: Department of Forestry, University of Kentucky, Lexington 40546.

Underseepage and its Control: A Symposium: Investigation of Underseepage - Mississippi River Levees

The studies reported here in include a compilation of past underseepage reports; exploration and geological studies of numerous sites where underseepage was a serious problem in 1937; installation ...

Discussion of “Underseepage and its Control: A Symposium: Investigation of Underseepage - Mississippi River Levees”

Discussion of “Underseepage and its Control: A Symposium: Investigation of Underseepage - Mississippi River Levees”

Closure to “Underseepage and its Control: A Symposium: Investigation of Underseepage - Mississippi River Levees”

Closure to “Underseepage and its Control: A Symposium: Investigation of Underseepage - Mississippi River Levees”