Mississippi River Water Quality and Interstate Collaboration

Mississippi River Water Quality and Interstate Collaboration
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2014-08-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0309304873

Summary of a Workshop on Mississippi River Water Quality Science and Interstate Collaboration summarizes presentations and discussions of Mississippi River and basin water quality management, monitoring, and evaluation programs that took place at a workshop that was held in St. Louis on November 18-19, 2013. The workshop examined a wide array of challenges and progress in water quality monitoring and evaluation in states along the Mississippi River corridor, and provided a forum for experts from U.S. federal agencies, the Mississippi River states, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to share and compare monitoring and evaluation experiences from their respective organizations.

Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act

Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2008-02-08
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0309177812

The Mississippi River is, in many ways, the nation's best known and most important river system. Mississippi River water quality is of paramount importance for sustaining the many uses of the river including drinking water, recreational and commercial activities, and support for the river's ecosystems and the environmental goods and services they provide. The Clean Water Act, passed by Congress in 1972, is the cornerstone of surface water quality protection in the United States, employing regulatory and nonregulatory measures designed to reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways. The Clean Water Act has reduced much pollution in the Mississippi River from "point sources" such as industries and water treatment plants, but problems stemming from urban runoff, agriculture, and other "non-point sources" have proven more difficult to address. This book concludes that too little coordination among the 10 states along the river has left the Mississippi River an "orphan" from a water quality monitoring and assessment perspective. Stronger leadership from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is needed to address these problems. Specifically, the EPA should establish a water quality data-sharing system for the length of the river, and work with the states to establish and achieve water quality standards. The Mississippi River corridor states also should be more proactive and cooperative in their water quality programs. For this effort, the EPA and the Mississippi River states should draw upon the lengthy experience of federal-interstate cooperation in managing water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico

Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico
Author: Committee on Clean Water Act Implementation Across the Mississippi River Basin
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 34
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309162726

Most water resources managers, scientists, and other experts would agree that nonpoint source pollution is a more pressing and challenging national water quality problem today than point source pollution. Nonpoint sources of pollutants include parking lots, farm fields, forests, or any source not from a discrete conveyance such as a pipe or canal. Of particular concern across the Mississippi River basin (MRB) are high levels of nutrient loadings--nitrogen and phosphorus--from both nonpoint and point sources that ultimately are discharged into the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). Nutrients emanate from both point and nonpoint sources across the river basin, but the large majority of nutrient yields across the MRB are nonpoint in nature and are associated with agricultural activities, especially applications of nitrogen-based fertilizers and runoff from concentrated animal feeding operations. Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico offers strategic advice and priorities for addressing MRB and NGOM water quality management and improvements. Although there is considerable uncertainty as to whether national water quality goals can be fully realized without some fundamental changes to the CWA, there is general agreement that significant progress can be made under existing statutory authority and budgetary processes. This book includes four sections identifying priority areas and offering recommendations to EPA and others regarding priority actions for Clean Water Act implementation across the Mississippi River basin. These sections are: USDA's Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative; Numeric Water Quality Criteria for the northern Gulf of Mexico; A Basinwide Strategy for Nutrient Management and Water Quality; and, Stronger Leadership and Collaboration.

The Lifeblood of America - The Story of the Mississippi River

The Lifeblood of America - The Story of the Mississippi River
Author: Teresa Ice
Publisher: Teresa Ice
Total Pages: 98
Release: 2024-08-18
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN:

"The Lifeblood of America: The Story of the Mississippi River" explores the multifaceted significance of America's greatest waterway. From its geological origins and ecological impact to its cultural, economic, and historical roles, this comprehensive book offers an in-depth look at how the river has shaped and been shaped by the American experience.

A Review of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

A Review of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2016-11-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309379857

The United States' tradition of conserving fish, wildlife, habitats, and cultural resources dates to the mid-19th century. States have long sought to manage fish and wildlife species within their borders, whereas many early federal conservation efforts focused on setting aside specific places as parks, sanctuaries, or reserves. With advances in landscape ecology over the past quarter-century, conservation planners, scientists, and practitioners began to stress the importance of conservation efforts at the scale of landscapes and seascapes. These larger areas were thought to harbor relatively large numbers of species that are likely to maintain population viability and sustain ecological processes and natural disturbance regimes - often considered critical factors in conserving biodiversity. By focusing conservation efforts at the level of whole ecosystems and landscape, practitioners can better attempt to conserve the vast majority of species in a particular ecosystem. Successfully addressing the large-scale, interlinked problems associated with landscape degradation will necessitate a planning process that bridges different scientific disciplines and across sectors, as well as an understanding of complexity, uncertainty, and the local context of conservation work. The landscape approach aims to develop shared conservation priorities across jurisdictions and across many resources to create a single, collaborative conservation effort that can meet stakeholder needs. Conservation of habitats, species, ecosystem services, and cultural resources in the face of multiple stressors requires governance structures that can bridge the geographic and jurisdictional boundaries of the complex socio-ecological systems in which landscape-level conservation occurs. The Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) Network was established to complement and add value to the many ongoing state, tribal, federal, and nongovernmental efforts to address the challenge of conserving species, habitats, ecosystem services, and cultural resources in the face of large-scale and long-term threats, including climate change. A Review of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives evaluates the purpose, goals, and scientific merits of the LCC program within the context of similar programs, and whether the program has resulted in measurable improvements in the health of fish, wildlife, and their habitats.

Population, Agriculture, and Biodiversity

Population, Agriculture, and Biodiversity
Author: J. Perry Gustafson
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2020-05-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0826274404

This timely collection of 15 original essays written by expert scientists the world over addresses the relationships between human population growth, the need to increase food supplies to feed the world population, and the chances for avoiding the extinction of a major proportion of the world's plant and animal species that collectively makes our survival on Earth possible. These relationships are highly intertwined, and changes in each of them steadily decrease humankind’s chances to achieve environmental stability on our fragile planet. The world population is projected to be nine to ten billion by 2050, signaling the need to increase world food production by more than 70 percent on the same amount of land currently under production—and this without further damaging our fragile environment. The essays in this collection, written by experts for laypersons, present the problems we face with clarity and assess our prospects for solving them, calling for action but holding out viable solutions.

Upper Mississippi River Navigation Charts

Upper Mississippi River Navigation Charts
Author: United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Rock Island District
Publisher:
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1989
Genre: Mississippi River
ISBN: