Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications

Large-scale river diversions on the lower Mississippi River are considered to be an important component of wetland restoration efforts in coastal Louisiana. Diversions are used primarily for salinity control but increasingly proposed also as a major way to deliver sediments and nutrients to coastal...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Das, Anindita, Justic, Dubravko, Inoue, Masamichi, Hoda, Asif, Huang, Haosheng, Park, Dongho
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Academic Press 2012
Subjects:	TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Online Access:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/1/Impacts_of_Mississippi_River_diversions_on_salinity_gradients.pdf

id	iium-29152
recordtype	eprints
spelling	iium-291522013-04-16T01:32:43Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications Das, Anindita Justic, Dubravko Inoue, Masamichi Hoda, Asif Huang, Haosheng Park, Dongho TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) Large-scale river diversions on the lower Mississippi River are considered to be an important component of wetland restoration efforts in coastal Louisiana. Diversions are used primarily for salinity control but increasingly proposed also as a major way to deliver sediments and nutrients to coastal wetlands impacted by the construction of flood control levees. We used a coupled hydrology–hydrodynamics model of the Barataria estuary, a site of the Davis Pond Diversion – the world's largest river diversion project, to examine salinity variations under different diversion discharge scenarios. Discharge scenarios were selected based on actual freshwater discharges in different years and management alternatives that included a scenario with several new diversions. The model results indicate that river diversions strongly affect salinities only in the middle section of the Barataria estuary. The upper parts of the estuary are fresh most of the time and so the excess fresh water from river diversions has only a minor impact on salinity in this region. Also, the Davis Pond diversion has little impact on salinities in the coastal section of the estuary because of strong marine influence in this area adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. Interestingly, the predicted salinity differences between different model scenarios can be as high as 10 in some months and places. These differences can be biologically significant depending on the salinity tolerance of different species and could cause a shift in community composition within the affected region. Academic Press 2012-10 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/1/Impacts_of_Mississippi_River_diversions_on_salinity_gradients.pdf Das, Anindita and Justic, Dubravko and Inoue, Masamichi and Hoda, Asif and Huang, Haosheng and Park, Dongho (2012) Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 111 (1). pp. 17-26. ISSN (p) 0272-7714 (o) 1096-0015 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771412002156 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2012.06.005
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	International Islamic University Malaysia
building	IIUM Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
topic	TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
spellingShingle	TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) Das, Anindita Justic, Dubravko Inoue, Masamichi Hoda, Asif Huang, Haosheng Park, Dongho Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
description	Large-scale river diversions on the lower Mississippi River are considered to be an important component of wetland restoration efforts in coastal Louisiana. Diversions are used primarily for salinity control but increasingly proposed also as a major way to deliver sediments and nutrients to coastal wetlands impacted by the construction of flood control levees. We used a coupled hydrology–hydrodynamics model of the Barataria estuary, a site of the Davis Pond Diversion – the world's largest river diversion project, to examine salinity variations under different diversion discharge scenarios. Discharge scenarios were selected based on actual freshwater discharges in different years and management alternatives that included a scenario with several new diversions. The model results indicate that river diversions strongly affect salinities only in the middle section of the Barataria estuary. The upper parts of the estuary are fresh most of the time and so the excess fresh water from river diversions has only a minor impact on salinity in this region. Also, the Davis Pond diversion has little impact on salinities in the coastal section of the estuary because of strong marine influence in this area adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. Interestingly, the predicted salinity differences between different model scenarios can be as high as 10 in some months and places. These differences can be biologically significant depending on the salinity tolerance of different species and could cause a shift in community composition within the affected region.
format	Article
author	Das, Anindita Justic, Dubravko Inoue, Masamichi Hoda, Asif Huang, Haosheng Park, Dongho
author_facet	Das, Anindita Justic, Dubravko Inoue, Masamichi Hoda, Asif Huang, Haosheng Park, Dongho
author_sort	Das, Anindita
title	Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
title_short	Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
title_full	Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
title_fullStr	Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
title_full_unstemmed	Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications
title_sort	impacts of mississippi river diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic louisiana estuary: ecological and management implications
publisher	Academic Press
publishDate	2012
url	http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/29152/1/Impacts_of_Mississippi_River_diversions_on_salinity_gradients.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:42:46Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:42:46Z
_version_	1777409475689316352

Impacts of Mississippi River diversions on salinity gradients in a deltaic Louisiana estuary: Ecological and management implications

Similar Items