Future of Aquatic Flows in the South Central U.S.: Toward Sustainable Water Management in the Mississippi River Basin Active

The greater Mississippi River Basin (MRB) is the largest river basin in North America and the fourth largest basin in the world. The MRB encompasses 24 terrestrial ecosystems, providing habitat for 100 species of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians Its floodplain supports 40% of the waterfowl and wading birds in North America, and the MRB’s rivers transport 40% of the nation’s total exports. Dozens of different cultures are scattered across the MRB with different policy structures, worldviews, and economic strengths. The heterogeneity in the environmental and socio-cultural settings across the MRB poses a challenge to climate adaptation and actionable resource management recommendations. Yet climate change has disrupted the amount, frequency, and seasonality of precipitation events across the greater MRB. For example, higher spring temperatures in the North Central U.S. can cause earlier and more rapid ice melt in the MRB, leading to ice jams and low and high flow events. Such changes in streamflow affect species locally and downstream, especially when combined with other stressors such as land-use changes, nutrient runoff, and increasing demand for water. Regional precipitation events can have remote impacts, resulting in substantially different conditions. For example, in 2011, the lower basin was experiencing severe to exceptional drought while heavy rainfall spread across the upper basin. With drought in Louisiana, heavy to moderate flooding occurred, causing the Morganza Control Structure to be opened for only the second time in its history. The challenges of water management are complex and vary greatly across the MRB. Therefore, the climate adaptation community needs to think across multiple spatial and temporal scales to identify solutions that work within and across the socio-environmental systems in the MRB. This project will develop a conceptual model of the MRB socio-environmental system to document, visualize, and analyze the complex relationships which need to be considered for sustainable management of hydrological resources and aquatic flows. The research team will connect the model with a database that incorporates a multitude of qualitative and quantitative datasets across spatial and temporal scales. This database will form the basis of many MRB socio-environmental system climate adaption projects. The results of this project will help to develop nuanced management recommendations for the future of aquatic flows in the South Central U.S. under a changing climate.