Channel geometry analysis technique for the Lower Mississippi River

The channel of the Lower Mississippi River is primarily the product of natural flows acting on the floodplain materials over centuries and millennia to form an alluvial stream. Channel geometry analysis is possible for the Lower Mississippi River thanks to the existence of historical, comprehensive, and annual hydrographic surveys of the river. During the twentieth century the geomorphology of the Lower Mississippi River was influenced by a series of engineering modifications to improve flood control and aid navigation. The objective of pre-processing was to develop a series of automated routines for extracting survey data pertaining to individual cross-sections as standalone text files from the full data set of each annual survey, originally compiled in GIS format. Spatial analysis was undertaken to explore how channel geometry varied along the study reach at the time of each hydrographic survey. Temporal changes in cross-sectional geometry demonstrate that the behaviour of this reach is highly dynamic.