Levees Make Mississippi River Floods Worse, But We Keep Building Them
For more than 150 years, scientists have known that levees increase flood risk on the Mississippi River. That hasn't stopped local officials from building up levees in response to more severe floods.
Floods on the Mississippi River are getting more frequent and more severe. But scientists warn that the infrastructure meant to protect towns and farms against flood waters is making the problem worse.
A series of analyses have helped confirm what engineers have posited for more than a century: that earthen levees built along the river are increasing flood risk for everyone, and especially hurting those who live across from them.
"When a new or larger levee is built there is often hew and cry, and if there isn't, there should be," says Nicholas Pinter, a geologist and the associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
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