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St. Louis District Rock Island District St. Paul District
US Army Corps of Engineers
Climate Change Adaptation on the Upper Mississippi River Floodplain
Chuck Theiling USACE Rock Island District 5th National Partners Conference U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Memphis, TN 16 November, 2011
“Unprecedented pretty well sums it up”
Jody Farhat – Chief Mo. R. Water Mgmt. Office (USACE)
• Upper Midwest unusually heavy snow • 300 – 600 percent greater than normal spring rain • 35 – 40 percent more mountain snowpack
2011 Missouri River Floods
St. John’s-New Madrid Floodway
The purpose of the floodway is to lower flood stages upstream and adjacent to the floodway during major flood events. The Floodway is some 35 miles in length and varies from 4 to 12 miles in width. It comprises about 205 square miles of alluvial valley land.
Upper Mississippi River
NWS 90-day Outlook March 7 – June 5, 2011
Near Miss
The flood risk horizon is (has?) changing. It’s time to consider future
options for a resilient UMRS floodplain infrastructure.
Reasons to Adapt Floodplain Management
• Climate change
• Flood risk
• Nutrient enrichment (Gulf hypoxia)
• Food and fiber
• Fuel (corn, cellulose, butanol)
• Security (Navy & Air Force fuel)
Discussion Points
I. UMRS floodplain hydrology and development
II. Past evidence and recent change
III. Floodplain adaptation challenges
IV. Stepping down risk/Residual risk
V. Modeling ecological and economic production in the floodplain – Ecosystem Services
VI. Next steps
Upper Mississippi River System
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Peoria
Dubuque
La Crosse
St. Louis
Rock Island
Minneapolis
Cape Girardeau
IOWA
MINNESOTA
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS
WISCONSIN
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5 5a
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25 Melvin Price
Lockport
Brandon
Dresden
Marseilles
Starved Rock
Peoria
La Grange
Reach 1 Reach 2
Reach 3
Reach 4
Reach 5
Reach 6
Reach 7
Reach 8
Reach 9
Reach 10
Illinois River 2
Illinois River 1
0 100 200 300 400 50
Kilometers
! City
Locks + Dams
UMRS Basin
State Boundaries
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Impounded
Unimpounded Reach
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Peoria
Dubuque
La Crosse
St. Louis
Rock Island
Minneapolis
Cape Girardeau
IOWA
MINNESOTA
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS
WISCONSIN
1
2 3
4
5 5a
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15 16
17
18
19 20
21
22
24
25 Melvin Price
Lockport
Brandon
Dresden
Marseilles
Starved Rock
Peoria
La Grange
Reach 1 Reach 2
Reach 3
Reach 4
Reach 5
Reach 6
Reach 7
Reach 8
Reach 9
Reach 10
Illinois River 2
Illinois River 1
0 100 200 300 400 50
Kilometers
! City
Locks + Dams
UMRS Basin
State Boundaries
«
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Peoria
Dubuque
La Crosse
St. Louis
Rock Island
Minneapolis
Cape Girardeau
IOWA
MINNESOTA
MISSOURI
ILLINOIS
WISCONSIN
1
2 3
4
5 5a
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15 16
17
18
19 20
21
22
24
25 Melvin Price
Lockport
Brandon
Dresden
Marseilles
Starved Rock
Peoria
La Grange
Reach 1 Reach 2
Reach 3
Reach 4
Reach 5
Reach 6
Reach 7
Reach 8
Reach 9
Reach 10
Illinois River 2
Illinois River 1
0 100 200 300 400 50
Kilometers
! City
Locks + Dams
UMRS Basin
State Boundaries
«
Upper
Impounded
Rea ch
Lower
Impounded
Reach
Middle
Mississippi
Reach
Illinois
River
Reach
UMRS Floodplain Development
Simulated Flood Inundation Surfaces for Pool 18
Henderson III Levee
and Drainage District
Wetland Reserve
Program removed
pumps in 2008 –
2,600 acres
Similar to The Nature
Conservancy Spunky
Bottoms and Emiquon;
The Wetlands Initiative
Hennepin-Hopper
• Several climate shifts have occurred in the UMRS since glacial retreat (Knox, Nature 1993) .
• Discharge and large floods have generally increased basin-wide since the 1930s (Changnon, 1983; Knox, 1993; Wlosinski, USGS 1999; Zhang and Schilling, 2006).
• There are climate oscillations
• Large floods and extremes may increase during climate transition
UMRS Climate Change
Climate has Varied Since the Last Glaciers
(after Knox, 1985a; 1996a).
the size of moderate and large floods varies a lot.
Magnitude and Frequency of Annual Maximum Floods, Keokuk, IA
(Knox 1996, 2000)
The average flood varies a little between climate episodes,
Levee Building
Discharge is
Increasing (3-Year Moving
Average Discharge)
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cfs
)
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Dis
ch
arg
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cfs
)
050,000
100,000150,000200,000250,000300,000350,000400,000450,000500,000
Keokuk, IA
St. Louis, MO
The Anomaly of Large Floods and Global Climate Change
“It is therefore intriguing that the accelerated global warming of the 20th century seems to be associated with a trend toward more frequent large floods” (Jim Knox, University of Wisconsin, 2000).
UMRS Floodplain Adaptation Challenges
• Increased flood frequency/risk
• Increased pumping costs
• Uncertainty - Flood stationarity (or not)?
• Levee structural ratings
• FEMA Levee certification
• National Flood Insurance Program rate changes
• Wetland management
Risk Management: Concepts And Guidance By Harold Schott, 1989
Risk Assessment Most civil infrastructure was designed for historic hydrology and development
Be Ready
How bad can it get?
What will happen?
How do we adapt?
Mississippi River and Tributaries Project:
Designed Floodways Systemic Flood
Protection
Missouri River Multi-Purpose Storage Reservoirs
Risk Management: Concepts And Guidance By Harold Schott, 1989
Adaptive Risk Assessment? Most civil infrastructure was designed for historic hydrology and development that has changed, which makes this a risk assessment cycle rather than the clean linear process depicted
Be Ready
How bad can it get?
What will happen?
How do we adapt?
Residual Risk: “When all the Wheels Fall off the Bus”
UMRS Floodway Plan Using Levee Districts
It fits these needs from IPCC:
• Anticipatory (or proactive) adaptation
• Planned adaptation
• Private adaptation
• Public adaptation
Stepping Down Risk on the
Upper Mississippi
It integrates things like:
• Flood risk
• Alternative land use
• Flood insurance
• Public incentives
July 2008
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
Acre
s In
un
da
ted
Modeling Ecosystem Services Ecosystem Production:Economic Production
Flood Damage Prevented
100% 0%
Potential Acres Inundated = Ecosystem Production Function
Relative Flood Damage Prevented = Economic Production Function
Ecosystem Services
Flood Zone
Catastrophe
Maximizing Floodplain Benefits
This farm is producing fish!
This farm is producing crops!
“Ecosystem Services”
Estimating Environmental Benefits Hydro-Geomorphic Methodology
Geomorphology Historic Land Cover Hydrology
Legend Prairie
Cottonwood/Willow
Wet Floodplain Forest
Mesic Floodplain Forest
Non-Aquatic
Isolated Backwater
Connected Backwater
Impounded Area
Tertiary Channel
Secondary Channel
Channel Border
Main Channel
Tributary Channel
Seamless River-Floodplain Potential “Habitat” Scalable: • Geomorphology
• Landform • Elevation/Bathymetry • Soils/Sediment
• Hydrology • Snapshot Aq. Areas • Stage • Inundation • 2-d Flow
• Land Cover • Vegetation/Habitat • Existing • Historic • Modeled
We need to incorporate economics: Crops Transportation Industry/Mining Municipal infrastructure Crop insurance Flood easements Nutrient credits Habitat incentives Recreation
Floodplain Crop Value
Figure 5 Figure 6: .2% Exceedance Probability Flood Inundation and
USGS DEM
$0
$10,000,000
$20,000,000
$30,000,000
$40,000,000
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$60,000,000
50% 20% 10% 4% 2% 1% 0.5% 0.2%
Value of Crops Flooded by Event
Value
Recreation
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Biomass Corridor
Dr. Shibu Jose, Mizzou Agroforestry
His proposal involves replacing the food crops along the rivers with seven types of plants: • cottonwood and willow trees, • switchgrass and miscanthus grass, • energy cane, and • sweet and biomass sorghum.
Small, advanced rural biorefineries would then collect the biomass, grind up the feedstock, and make pellets or extract sugar out of them. The product would then ship to "hubs," larger plants that ferment the pellets into electricity or biofuel, such as butanol, green diesel and jet fuel.
Reestablishing Floodplain Functions: Watershed Nutrient Exchange
S. Fabius 396,664 acres; 620 sq. miles
N. Fabius 586,111 acres; 916 sq. miles
UMRS 120 million acres; 189,190 sq. miles 12 major tributaries, 30,000 miles of rivers 17 HUC-6; 131 HUC-8; 18,500 HUC-12
Floodplain Hydrologic
Connectivity
~25 miles Ditches
~10 miles Ditches
Hydroponic Biomass Farming
Floating Islands Three Proven Technologies Biohaven® Floating Islands represent the best of wetland science and ecological engineering and combine three proven technologies to create a natural, efficient and innovative method to improve water quality. -Bioremediation: the use of naturally occurring physical, chemical and biological processes to reduce the mass, toxicity, mobility, volume or concentration of a contaminant. -Phytoremediation: the ability of plants to remove pollution from the environment through their dependence upon both macro and micronutrients. -Hydroponics: growing plants in nutrient-filled water without soil. An innovative variation on constructed wetlands, BioHavens® have several advantages over constructed systems.
Algal Turf Scrubbing: Cleaning Surface Waters with Solar Energy
while Producing a Biofuel WALTER H. ADEY, PATRICK C. KANGAS, AND WALTER MULBRY
Bioscience June 2011 / Vol. 61 No. 6
What are the Science and Engineering Issues?
• Levee and controlled overflow integrity and costs
• Watershed nutrient and sediment management
• Crop production/alternatives
What are the knowledge gaps? • Economic valuation of floodplain agriculture, recreation, and
other resources
• Fine scale impacts (Whose farm? How many bass?)
• Potential ecosystem, economic, and regulatory trade-offs
We Have the Capacity to Model Alternative Floodplain Management Scenarios
Multiple Reference Condition Analysis Can help evaluate costs and benefits of alternative floodplain management
High
Terrace
Within District TMDL
Decant Water From Tributary and Mainstem: Watershed TMDL
• Intercept tributary runoff at high flow
• Decant tributary or Mississippi River at low flow
Restore Tributary and Decant Mainstem: Watershed TMDL & Habitat
• Reroute tributary to historic channels
• Decant from Mississippi River
• Farmed wetland/rice
• Native cover habitat incentive
• Aquaculture – fish and crawfish
• Fishing and Hunting Income
Re-Plumbing Floodplains
Next Steps
• University of Iowa Senior Design Feasibility Study
• Ecosystem services valuation
• Economic analysis
• Structured decision analysis for floodplain objectives
• EPA TMDL credits
• Pilot studies
There are plenty of opportunities for innovation in floodplain management. I’m glad to participate in the search for
answers with engineers, scientists, resource managers, farmers, and
regular folks.
Thanks for the chance to talk today!