5.  Saikku, Mikko.  (2005).  This Delta, This Land: An Environmental History of the Yazoo-Mississppi Floodplain.  Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
             A “hydraulic civilization” has an extensive water management system that is needed to sustain profitable agriculture, and a powerful central government that controls this system.  On the floodplain, floods were not destructive because of a fast current, but because of the even depth with which they covered everything.  Effective, coordinated (AK, LA, MI) did not happen until after 1927 flood when the federal government funded levee projects.  Biological losses from backswamp drainage and wetland development are emphasized.  The hardwood forests of the floodplain are nearly gone because of human development.  This is important because they helped prevent the floods from reaching past them.  This book mostly focuses on the biological systems or natural barriers against the river’s floods.

 

6.  Spearing, Darwin.  (1995).  Roadside Geology of Louisiana.  Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company.

             Spearing explains basic river dynamics as they apply to the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in Louisiana.  In particular, meanders, oxbow lakes, flood plains, natural levees, and crevasse splay deposits are reviewed.  Bayous are any watercourse, typically seasonal or past tributaries and river channels, or swamp and marsh channels.  He explains the natural change of the course of the river (six times in the past 7500 years).  He also tells the history of the river before the Pleistocene epoch (last ice age).  The disappearance of wetlands is normal with the change of course of the river, but human activity is greatly increasing the rate.  This book also covers the geology of New Orleans: the stiff Pleistocene clays treated like bedrock, for example.  Drainage of the surrounding wetlands has caused subsidence.  Lake Pontchartrain and Borgne are results of past deltas, bays, and barrier islands of Mississippi river.

 

7.  Tidwell, Mike.  (2003).  Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast.  New York, New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc.

             The mixture of French and Southern culture form the distinctive Cajun culture.  The author journeys through the estuaries and wetlands (bayous) in the delta where he documents the lives of people living off the river, fishermen and boat pilots to the oil riggers for example.  Louisiana uses dredging boats everyday to keep a channel cleared for ships out into the Gulf, especially in Atchafalaya delta.  There is mention of diverting the river below New Orleans to help distribute the sediment that is being dumped straight into the Gulf along the Louisiana coastline.  This might help save some drowning coastal communities, as well as help sustain the disappearing wetlands.  The Davis Pond and Caernarvon diversions, particularly, are mentioned.

 

8.  Twain, Mark.  (1967).  Life on the Mississippi.  Minneapolis, Minnesota: Dillon Press.

             The first chapter of this book gives a geological overview of the river, which grows narrower and deeper(~.5mi, 129 ft) until just above the mouth.  The author describes the effects of the sudden jumps of the river, cutting off a meander and leaving a port town high and dry, changing state boundaries.  The first commerce on the river was via barges, which were eventually replaced by steamboats.  The rest of the book describes life on the river, particularly that of a river pilot and the knowledge base (steer in the dark and fog) and technique (sounding) he was required to have.

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