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In late summer 1988 the dead zone disappeared as the great drought caused the flow of Mississippi to fall to its lowest level since 1933. During times of heavy flooding in the Mississippi River Basin, as in 1993, "the "dead zone" dramatically increased in size, approximately 5,000 km (3,107 mi) larger than the previous year". [72]
The Mississippi River drains about 41% of the nation's water systems into the Gulf of Mexico. The river itself begins at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and runs through 10 states before it reaches the Gulf.
An example of this is the dead zone located off the coast of the Mississippi River. According to NOAA, the 2016 predicted size of this dead zone is going to be approximately 5,898 square miles with a nitrate concentration of 146,000 metric tons of nitrate flowing down the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River into the Gulf of Mexico. [5]
The Mississippi River Basin encompasses 31 U.S. states with an area of 1,837,000 square miles. [1] The Mississippi River's capacity to remove nutrients has diminished due to a range of human activities, such as development, taking place along the Mississippi River itself and the streams and tributaries linked to it.
Scientists prepare to collect near-bottom water aboard the R/V Pelican to verify oxygen measurements used to determine the size of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. (NOAA/LUMCON/LSU) A "dead zone ...
The Head of Passes is considered to be the location of the mouth of the Mississippi River. The US Army Corps of Engineers maintains a 45-foot (13.7 m) shipping channel from the mouth of Southwest Pass—20 miles (32 km) downriver from the Head—up to Baton Rouge , the US's farthest inland deep-water port.
Many Mississippi River towns formed in the 19th century. Pulp and paper mills, chemical plants, coal operations and the metals industry grew up along the massive river that provided a cheap and ...
The political and engineering focus in the 20th century was to separate the Lower Mississippi River from its floodplain.Levees and channelization—along with substantial loss of bottomland forests to agriculture in the alluvial valley—have resulted in a loss of wildlife and fish habitat, decreased water quality, and an expansion of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.