THIS 930-square-metre model may help save the fragile Mississippi delta and coastal ecosystem. Researchers at the Louisiana State University Center for River Studies in Baton Rouge use it to mimic 320 kilometres of the lower Mississippi river as it winds its way to the Gulf of Mexico, simulating a year of movement in an hour.
The Louisiana coastline has one of the world鈥檚 highest rates of relative sea level rise. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost more than 5000 square kilometres of wetlands through subsidence and the increased effects of climate change. Now, an area of coastal land the size of an American football field disappears every 90 minutes.
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The delta is built from sediment that washes down the river, but the construction of levees to prevent flooding means much of this sediment ends up in the sea.
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The state plans to divert river sediment into eroding wetlands to rebuild land. One terracing project has already converted open water into new marshlands near Fort St Phillip.
Water and granules can be put into the model to simulate the movement of sediment. The model will help work out how single or multiple diversions affect the river鈥檚 flow.
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