Download or read book The Control of Nature written by John McPhee and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While John McPhee was working on his previous book, Rising from the Plains, he happened to walk by the engineering building at the University of Wyoming, where words etched in limestone said: "Strive on--the control of Nature is won, not given." In the morning sunlight, that central phrase--"the control of nature"--seemed to sparkle with unintended ambiguity. Bilateral, symmetrical, it could with equal speed travel in opposite directions. For some years, he had been planning a book about places in the world where people have been engaged in all-out battles with nature, about (in the words of the book itself) "any struggle against natural forces--heroic or venal, rash or well advised--when human beings conscript themselves to fight against the earth, to take what is not given, to rout the destroying enemy, to surround the base of Mt. Olympus demanding and expecting the surrender of the gods." His interest had first been sparked when he went into the Atchafalaya--the largest river swamp in North America--and had learned that virtually all of its waters were metered and rationed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project called Old River Control. In the natural cycles of the Mississippi's deltaic plain, the time had come for the Mississippi to change course, to shift its mouth more than a hundred miles and go down the Atchafalaya, one of its distributary branches. The United States could not afford that--for New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and all the industries that lie between would be cut off from river commerce with the rest of the nation. At a place called Old River, the Corps therefore had built a great fortress--part dam, part valve--to restrain the flow of the Atchafalaya and compel the Mississippi to stay where it is. In Iceland, in 1973, an island split open without warning and huge volumes of lava began moving in the direction of a harbor scarcely half a mile away. It was not only Iceland's premier fishing port (accounting for a large percentage of Iceland's export economy) but it was also the only harbor along the nation's southern coast. As the lava threatened to fill the harbor and wipe it out, a physicist named Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson suggested a way to fight against the flowing red rock--initiating an all-out endeavor unique in human history. On the big island of Hawaii, one of the world's two must eruptive hot spots, people are not unmindful of the Icelandic example. McPhee went to Hawaii to talk with them and to walk beside the edges of a molten lake and incandescent rivers. Some of the more expensive real estate in Los Angeles is up against mountains that are rising and disintegrating as rapidly as any in the world. After a complex coincidence of natural events, boulders will flow out of these mountains like fish eggs, mixed with mud, sand, and smaller rocks in a cascading mass known as debris flow. Plucking up trees and cars, bursting through doors and windows, filling up houses to their eaves, debris flows threaten the lives of people living in and near Los Angeles' famous canyons. At extraordinary expense the city has built a hundred and fifty stadium-like basins in a daring effort to catch the debris. Taking us deep into these contested territories, McPhee details the strategies and tactics through which people attempt to control nature. Most striking in his vivid depiction of the main contestants: nature in complex and awesome guises, and those who would attempt to wrest control from her--stubborn, often ingenious, and always arresting characters.
Download or read book Beyond Control written by James F. Barnett, Jr. and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed chronicle of how the wild Mississippi will eventually deliver a cataclysm
Download or read book Old River Diversion Mississippi River written by Charles R. Nickles and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barges in the inflow channel of the Old River Diversion Low-Sill Structure are of particular concern because of the possibility of their being lodged on the structure and endangering the stability of the already weakened structure. The 1:120-scale undistorted fixed-bed model was used to study the following four types of barge barriers to determine their effectiveness and their effect on the hydraulic conditions of the inflow channel: a spur dike system, a vane dike system, an anchored floating barrier, and a pier-supported floating barrier. Also studied was the effect on loose barges of the reduction of discharge through the low-sill structure when an auxiliary structure is used. Results of the studies indicated that only the floating barge barrier would be effective in preventing loose barges from entering the low-sill structure inflow channel and this barrier would require an overbank structure through which flow could pass easily to stop barges floating across the overbank toward the inflow channel during floods. The pier-supported floating barrier would require all piers except the most upstream pier and all floating barrier sections to be designed to withstand equal impact based on the angle of approach of an unpowered tow. The most upstream pier should be designed to withstand the total impact force from a barge tow during a flood with sufficient overbank depth to provide flotation.
Download or read book Drawing Louisiana s New Map written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2006-02-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past 50 years, coastal Louisiana has suffered catastrophic land loss due to both natural and human causes. This loss has increased storm vulnerability and amplified risks to lives, property, and economies-a fact underscored by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Drawing Louisiana's New Map reviews a restoration plan proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Louisiana, finding that, although the individual projects in the study are scientifically sound, there should be more and larger scale projects that provide a comprehensive approach to addressing land loss over such a large area. More importantly, the study should be guided by a detailed map of the expected future landscape of coastal Louisiana that is developed from agreed upon goals for the region and the nation.
Download or read book River Mechanics written by Pierre Y. Julien and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Completely updated and with three new chapters, this analysis of river dynamics is invaluable for advanced students, researchers and practitioners.
Download or read book Contaminants in the Mississippi River 1987 92 written by Geological Survey (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Yazoo River written by Frank E. Smith and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 1988 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An immensely pleasurable book that unlocks the door to one of the most unusual and diverse regions in the United States, the culturally rich Delta flatland embraced by two rivers, the Mississippi and the Yazoo
Download or read book Upper Mississippi River Navigation Charts written by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Rock Island District and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Old River Diversion Control written by and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Geological Investigation of Faulting in the Lower Mississippi Valley written by E. L. Krinitzsky and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biogeochemical Dynamics at Major River Coastal Interfaces written by Thomas Bianchi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, state-of-the-art synthesis of biogeochemical dynamics and the impact of human alterations at major river-coastal interfaces for advanced students and researchers.
Download or read book Operation of the Old River Control Pro j ect Atchafalaya Basin written by Johannes L. Van Beek and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Atchafalaya Basin Floodway System written by and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Flooding and Management of Large Fluvial Lowlands written by Paul F. Hudson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines interrelations between flood management, flooding, and environmental change, for advanced students, researchers, and practitioners.
Download or read book Designing the Bayous written by Martin Reuss and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: :This history of the Atchafalaya Basin is an account of the transformation of an area that has endured perhaps more human manipulation than any other natural environment in the nation.
Download or read book The Mississippi written by Quinta Scott and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A photographic documentation of the Mississippi River, illustrating the geographical and botanical features of the river and its wetlands. Using 200 color photographs and accompanying vignettes, Scott explains how we have changed each site depicted, howwe try to manage and restore it, and the wildlife that occupies it"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Old River Diversion Mississippi River written by Charles R. Nickles and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
