Missouri River System Research Articles

Terra Cognita: Using Earth Observing Systems to Understand Our World

Who would believe that a butterfly, by flapping its wings in Peru, could set off a chain of events leading to a monsoon thousands of miles away? This familiar notion from chaos theory may seem absurd even as it raises a worthy point: Everything around us is intimately connected. And by studying how broad forces in nature interact, we can construct predictions that offer great benefits to society. Now a global effort is under way to revolutionize our understanding of the Earth as an interconnected whole. The effort aims to integrate Earth observing capabilities based on satellites and in situ or ground-based sensors into a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). By uniting these systems, scientists hope to take the pulse of the planet, and in so doing, generate a range of environmental, economic, and health benefits. For instance, should the effort yield even a 1°F improvement in weather forecasting, power utilities can plan their daily output needs more accurately, resulting in an annual $1 billion electricity savings for consumers in the United States alone, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Likewise, improved monitoring of air pollution, or better satellite mapping of habitats that harbor malaria, cholera, or West Nile virus, could save many lives by establishing warning systems for at-risk populations that might reduce exposure. A total of 54 countries, the European Union, and 33 international organizations have joined the GEOSS thus far, providing a welcome boost to the environmental reputation of its sponsor: the United States. The project is also the first project of its kind to get such high-level support, says Steve Goodman, chief of the Earth and Planetary Science Branch at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center. “I’ve never seen a program move at a pace like this with such a sustained effort,” says Gary Foley, who is director of the EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory. “It seems to be the right thing at the right time with the right leadership. It was what everyone seemed to be looking for.”

Multiple-attribute evaluation of ecosystem management for the Missouri River system

Multiple attribute evaluation is used to score and rank five management alternatives for the Missouri River system developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Alternatives are characterized by 10 attributes, namely flood control, hydropower, recreation, Missouri River navigation, water supply, fish and wildlife, interior drainage, groundwater, historic properties and Mississippi River navigation. Since preferences for the attributes are unknown, alternatives are compared using four hypothetical attribute-weighting schemes. Utility scores for the alternatives obtained using a linear additive utility function indicate that the modified conservation plan (MCP), which incorporates adaptive management, increased drought conservation measures, changes in Fort Peck dam releases and unbalanced levels in the upper three reservoirs, is preferred to the current water control plan (CWCP) with the neutral, pro-recreation/fish and wildlife, and pro-fish and wildlife weights. MCP ranked above the four Gavins Point (GP) alternatives except with the pro-fish and wildlife weights. CWCP is more preferred than the four GP options with the neutral and pro-agriculture weights and less preferred with the pro-recreation/fish and wildlife and pro-fish and wildlife weights. The GP option with the lowest reduction in summer flow and smallest spring rise (GPA) ranks above the GP option with the highest spring rise and greatest reduction in summer flow (GPB), a spring rise only (GPC) and a lower summer flow only (GPD).

Hydrological alteration along the Missouri River Basin: A time series approach

Human alteration of large rivers is commonplace, often resulting in significant changes in flow characteristics. We used a time series approach to examine daily mean flow data from locations throughout the mainstem Missouri River. Data from a pre-alteration period (1925–1948) were compared with a post-alteration period (1967–1996), with separate analyses conducted using either data from the entire year or restricted to the spring fish spawning period (1 April–30 June). Daily mean flows were significantly higher during the post-alteration period at all locations. Flow variability was markedly reduced during the post-alteration period as a probable result of flow regulation and climatological shifts. Daily mean flow during the spring fish spawning period was significantly lower during the post-alteration period at the most highly altered locations in the middle portion of the river, but unchanged at the least altered locations in the upper and lower port ions of the river. Our data also corroborate other analyses, using alternate statistical approaches, that suggest similar changes to the Missouri River system. Our results suggest human alterations on the Missouri River, particularly in the middle portion most strongly affected by impoundments and channelization, have resulted in changes to the natural flow regime.

Potential Influence of Harvest on Shovelnose Sturgeon Populations in the Missouri River System

Abstract The collapse of the European and Asian caviar industry has raised concern about the overexploitation of shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus platorynchus in the Missouri River. Unfortunately, little is known about the potential effects of harvest on the population dynamics of this species. Therefore, this study was conducted to describe the population characteristics (e.g., growth, longevity, and mortality) and to determine the influence of exploitation and harvest regulations (minimum length limits) on the yield, size structure, and egg production of shovelnose sturgeon from three sites in the Missouri River using a Beverton–Holt equilibrium model. Despite differences in the population characteristics (e.g., growth and longevity) of shovelnose sturgeon among sites, all populations responded similarly to harvest at the conditional natural mortality rates (death rate in the absence of harvest) used in our simulations (i.e., 5% and 20%). Our simulations of yield indicated that growth overfishing (i.e...

Growth rate responses of Missouri and Lower Yellowstone River fishes to a latitudinal gradient

Growth rate coefficients estimated for channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus, emerald shiners Notropis aherinoides, freshwater drums Aplodinotus grunniens, river carpsuckers Carpiodes arpio and saugers Stizostedion canadense collected in 1996–1998 from nine river sections of the Mssouri and lower Yellowstone rivers at two life‐stages (young‐of‐the‐year and age 1+ years)were significantly different among sections. However, they showed no river‐wide latitudinal trend except for age 1+ years emerald shiners that did show a weak negative relation between growth and both latitude and length of growing season. The results suggest growth rates of fishes along the Missouri River system are complex and could be of significance in the Management and conservation of fish communities in this altered system.

Growth rate responses of Missouri and Lower Yellowstone River fishes to a latitudinal gradient

Growth rate coefficients estimated for channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus, emerald shiners Notropis aherinoides, freshwater drums Aplodinotus grunniens, river carpsuckers Carpiodes arpio and saugers Stizostedion canadense collected in 1996–1998 from nine river sections of the Mssouri and lower Yellowstone rivers at two life-stages (young-of-the-year and age 1+ years)were significantly different among sections. However, they showed no river-wide latitudinal trend except for age 1+ years emerald shiners that did show a weak negative relation between growth and both latitude and length of growing season. The results suggest growth rates of fishes along the Missouri River system are complex and could be of significance in the Management and conservation of fish communities in this altered system.

Seasonal Patterns of Fish Abundance in Two Mountain Creeks of the Little Missouri River Drainage, Arkansas

Abundance and distributions for five taxonomic groups of fishes were recorded by underwater surveys in two headwater streams of the Little Missouri River System in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas. Observations were made from February to November 1993. Two components of the native fish assemblage were discernible: year-round residents and spring-to-fall residents. Creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus) and central stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum) appeared to be year-around residents. Two types of spring-to-fall residents were recognized: species represented by juveniles only, and species represented by all age classes. Smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) observed in the creeks were primarily juveniles. Longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis) and several shiner species (Cyprinidae) were observed breeding in the creeks.

Erosional and depositional patterns associated with the 1993 Missouri River floods inferred from SIR‐C and TOPSAR radar data

The Missouri River floods of 1993 caused significant and widespread damage to the floodplains between Kansas City and St. Louis. Immediately downstream of levee breaks, flood waters scoured the bottoms. As the floodwaters continued, they spread laterally and deposited massive amounts of sand as crevasse splays on top of agricultural fields. We explore the use of radar interferometry and backscatter data for quantitative estimation of scour and deposition for Jameson Island/Arrow Rock Bottoms and Lisbon Bottoms, two bottoms that were heavily damaged during the floods and subsequently abandoned. Shuttle imaging radar C (SIR‐C) L band (24 cm) HH (horizontally transmitted and horizontally received) radar backscatter data acquired in October 1994 were used together with a distorted Born approximation canopy scattering model to determine that the abundance of natural leafy forbs controlled the magnitude of backscatter for former agricultural fields. Forb areal density was found to be inversely correlated with thickness of sand deposited during the floods, presumably because thick sands prevented roots from reaching nutrient rich, moist bottoms soils. Using the inverse relationship, a lower bound for the mass of sand added was found to be 6.3 million metric tons over the 17 km2 study area. Digital elevation data from topographic synthetic aperture radar (TOPSAR) C band (5.6 cm) interferometric observations acquired in August 1994 were compared to a series of elevation profiles collected on the ground. Vertical errors in TOPSAR were estimated to range from 1 to 2 m, providing enough accuracy to generate an estimate of total mass (4.7 million metric tons) removed during erosion of levees and scour of the bottoms terrains. Net accretion of material to the study areas is consistent with the geologic record of major floods where sediment‐laden floodwaters crested over natural levees, initially scoured into the bottoms, and then deposited sands as crevasse splays as the flows spread out and slowed by frictional dissipation. The addition of artificial levees to the Missouri River system has undoubtedly enhanced flood damage, although quantitative estimation of the degree of enhancement will require additional work.

Protecting the piping plover under section 7 of the endangered species act

Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act directs federal agencies to ensure that their actions do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered and threatened species. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issues jeopardy or nonjeopardy biological opinions on proposed federal actions that affect endangered and threatened species. We summarize several biological opinions issued by the USFWS to protect the threatened piping plover (Charadrius melodus). These opinions address federal actions involving hundreds of piping plovers on the Missouri River system and a few piping plover pairs on short stretches of Atlantic coast beach. Some of these opinions are decisive, but most allow the proposed action to proceed conditional upon a lengthy set of reasonable and prudent alternatives to protect the piping plover. These conditions may prove difficult to track and will add to the workload of the USFWS.

The Wisconsinan deglaciation of southern Saskatchewan and adjacent areas: Discussion

In his recently published paper summarizing the stratigraphic and morphologic record of southern Saskatchewan and adjacent areas, Christiansen (1979) proposed a chronology of deglaciation that is in error because it fails to integrate relevant data from outside of Saskatchewan. Christiansen's interpretation shows a progressive northward retreat of the glacial margin from Montana and North Dakota beginning before 16 000 years BP. By 15 500 years ago, the ice is shown to have retreated north of the Missouri River watershed (which previously had channelled all meltwater well south of the glaciated region) with runoff discharging eastward into Manitoba via the Souris and Pembina channels (Phase 3, Fig. 12 in Christiansen). At 14 000 years BP (Phase 4, Fig. 13), the glacial margin of Christiansen has retreated still farther north, with icefree conditions having developed over most of southern Saskatchewan; all rivers of the deglaciated region of Saskatchewan and Alberta are shown draining eastward into Lake Agassiz in Manitoba. The 14 000 year BP margin of Christiansen (1979) brings his interpretation, as well as that of Klassen (1972), into apparently irresolvable conflict with evidence to the south and east of Saskatchewan. In one of the most closely and certainly dated events in the glacial chronology of central North America, ice advanced southward over a forest bed near Des Moines, Iowa, at 14 000 years BP to deposit the Bemis Moraine (Ruhe 1969). Radiocarbon dates from six samples of wood, including two trees in growth position in loess beneath till, three trees rooted in the top of the loess and pushed over by the advancing ice, and one log incorporated in till, record this advance (Table 1). Lobate patterns and flow indicators confirm that, to reach Iowa, this ice must have flowed through the Lake Agassiz basin (Fig. 1) and over the only southern outlet from this basin, the Minnesota River Valley. In short, it does not seem possible to have water discharging eastward into the Lake Agassiz basin at 14 000 years BP, nor probably at 15 500 years BP, as Christiansen (1979) has shown because the basin was filled with ice, making eastward and southeastward drainage impossible. This point also has been made by Teller (1976) and Teller and Fenton (1980). On the basis of the evidence available in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa, the last major glacial advance across the region reached its maximum western position about 14000 years ago (Clayton et al., in press). We suggest that Christiansen's Phase 2 (16 500 years BP) glacial boundary (Fig. 11) may more closely reflect conditions at 14 000 years BP. While the pattern of deglaciation in southwestern Saskatchewan and Alberta may have occurred as depicted by Christiansen, drainage from these western regions must have been southward into the Missouri River system until sometime after 14 000 years BP, rather than eastward through Lake Agassiz and into the upper Mississippi River system. Although it is not the main purpose of this discussion to explore the reason for Christiansen's unacceptably early chronology of deglaciation, we feel that a comment about the radiocarbon dates he used is pertinent. Nearly all of the dates that are used to document the deglaciation of southern Saskatchewan before 14 000 years BP are from finelydisseminated organic matter in fine-grained sediment (S-522 to S-526, GSC-1369, and S-

Aboriginal Use of Tongue River Silica in Northwest Iowa

One of the raw materials available to prehistoric peoples of northwestern Iowa is known as Tongue River Silica. Although the original source of the rock is the Fort Union formation (Paleocene) of the Dakotas, these resistant materials occur commonly in down stream alluvial deposits and along the Missouri River system where they were collected locally in north western Iowa for over 7000 years. This paper deals with the recognition of these redeposited Tongue River materials, their archaeological distribution in time and space, a consideration of the most workable color phase resulting from thermal pretreatment, and a general analysis of the types of chipped stone tools most frequently produced.

Vertabrates of the Flint Hills

The Flint Hills of Kansas constitute an ill-defined area with no prominences, deserts) extensive water, or othar features that ordinarily are considered as barriers to the migrations of animals or in a,ny waa inimical to the well-being of animals that otherwise inhabit the midlands. This mass af ridgesS and breaks and valleys, however, constitutes the last major remnant of the formerly much more extensive tall grass prairie, with the tall grass species rapidly reduced westward. There is a definite gradient in rainfall from the east to west across the Eilint Hills and a gradient in temperature arld rainfall from south to north. The major factors that determine the success of vertebrates, then, change rapidly enough in this 60 X 240 mile area to become submarginal for sever31 species at one or the other extreme of the area. Aquatic species, of course, are limited by the availability of water The northern part of the Flint Hills is drained by the Kaw River and its tributaries and by the Marias des Cygnes River which connects to the Missour; River farther to the east. The southern two thirds, on the other hand, is drained by the Arkansas River, or its tributaries, namely the Neosho-Cottonwood, Verdigris and Elk Rivers and Caney and Walnut Creeks, Thus, the aquatic animals7 fish in particular i,n the northern part of the area are derived from the inhabitants of the Missouri River system) while those in the south are closely related to those of the Arkansas River system. Furthermore, the Kaw River and its broad flood plain constitute a natural passageway through the northerSn. Flint Hills, allowing direct communication from east to west while the Arkansas River bypasses the area, and its tributaries run from north to south forming long narrow passages into the heart of the region through which some interchange can be made with southern species. Of this system only the Cottonwood River provides a sort of east-west passage through the regiorl. Other than the fishes which are limited iln distribution to continuous water or are dependent on man's intervention, distribution of amphibia, reptiles, and mammals is distinctly affected by the Flint Hills and the gradient of temperature and rainfall within their limits. In the following discussio.n, I am considering the Flint Hills within the limit of Kansas. It may be assumed that that portion in Oklahoma will be found closely comparable to the area in Chautauqua and Cowley

Records of Three Lampreys (Ichthyomyzon) from the Missouri River System

Records of Three Lampreys (Ichthyomyzon) from the Missouri River System

Clay Mineral Composition of Recent Sediments from the Mississippi River Delta

ABSTRACT The clay mineral composition of Recent sediments from the modern Mississippi River Delta and offshore regions in the vicinity of the Delta is reported. Montmorillonite is the dominant clay mineral being deposited in the Delta region. A small amount of this component changes to illite and chlorite. It is suggested that this material represents degraded micaceous material undergoing regradation, and thus represents the approximate contribution of the Ohio River drainage system to clay mineral assemblage. The bulk of the montmorillonite, presumably bentonitic in character, undergoes no apparent diagenesis. It is suggested that this material represents the approximate contribution of the drainage basin of the Missouri River system.

Identification of Cyprinid Fish Reported from Kansas as Squalius elongatus

Among the most puzzling records of freshwater fishes from eastern North America is that of Squalius elongatus from Kansas (Hay, 1887: 249). Suspecting that the record was based either on a misidentification or on an intergeneric hybrid, rather than on an example of Clinostomus elongatus (Kirtland), we have not included Kansas in the range of the species (Hubbs and Lagler, 1941: 56; 1947: 64). Since, however, this dace has a markedly localized and disjunct distribution, especially toward the west, and since several northern types range or once ranged southward as far as the Missouri River system in Kansas, the record, though from a stream far removed from others known to be occupied by the species, has not totally lacked plausibility. W. Ralph Taylor on examining the specimen in 1949 determined that it has the pharyngeal teeth alignable in 3 rows, as in most Old-World cyprinids but as in no native North American species. Since this observation accentuated the enigma, I studied the specimen (U.S.N.M. 38233) critically, with the cooperation of Leonard P. Schultz, on January 13, 1951. It was reported by Hay (I.c.) as having been collected by him in the North Fork of Solomon River at Lenora, Kansas, in July, 1885.