Geovisualization geoscience of large river floodplains

ABSTRACT

Alluvial river landscapes of the lower Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in the south-central USA are flood prone and have shifted historically in position and form, resulting in interventions for flood reduction, navigation, and water supply. Fisk mapped these landscapes in the middle of the twentieth century as a series of artistic colourful map plates. Selected areas are revisited with modern data sets (LiDAR from 2003, hydrographic surveys from 2006 and 2007) including two sites along the Mississippi River (near the Old River juncture and near Morganza Floodway) and one in the middle Atchafalaya River. By using 2D and 3D geovisualization, we find that the extent, variety, and dimensions of anthropogenic landforms have grown in prominence since Fisk’s mapping. The volumes of the highest positive landforms are quantified to provide some indication of direct and indirect anthropogenic activity in these landscapes.

KEYWORDS:

• Geovisualization
• river mapping
• fluvial landscapes
• geomorphology
• anthropogenic landforms
• Mississippi River
• Atchafalaya River
• hypsometric tinting

Acknowledgements

Mohammad Almulla, formerly of the University of Florida and presently at Kuwait University, kindly shared the hydrographic data for this section of the Atchafalaya River. Reviewers John Lewin and Julian Ruddock, and Special Issue Guest Editor Stephen Tooth, gave helpful comments that strengthened the paper. Publication of this article was funded in part by the University of Florida Open Access Publishing Fund.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Joann Mossa http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4192-6056

Yin-Hsuen Chen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4809-5718

Chia-Yu Wu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1884-1479