Great River Facts

The Missouri-Mississippi River basin has the third largest drainage area in the world (1,247,000 square miles), smaller only than the Amazon River basin in South America and the Congo River basin in Africa (National Geographic Society, 1984).

The Missouri River is about 200 miles longer than the Mississippi River (Walsh, 2003).

The Mississippi Flyway is the migration corridor for 36% of North America’s waterfowl (Havera, 1992).

The Illinois Waterway consists of a system of canals and rivers (including the Illinois River) that connect the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi River (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2004).

Multiple agencies are working together to install and maintain a permanent electric fish barrier at the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to prevent invasive species, such as Asian carp, from reaching (and disrupting) the Great Lakes ecosystem. The agencies hope that the same barrier will prevent harmful fishes from the Great Lakes from reaching the Mississippi River and its thousands of tributary streams and rivers (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2004).

Scientists have studied the geology and biology of the Illinois River for over 100 years—leading some to call it the “most studied river in the world” (Riverweb Museum Consortium, 2003).

The United States acquired the Mississippi River as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (Walsh, 2003).

Since 1985, scientists have been studying a “dead zone”, or zone of hypoxia, which forms in the Gulf of Mexico each summer. The Mississippi River empties large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Gulf which produces algal blooms. As the algae dies and sinks to the bottom, it consumes lots of oxygen thereby creating an oxygen-poor “dead zone” that is void of nearly all aquatic life (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2003).

References Cited

Havera, S.P. 1992. Waterfowl of Illinois: status and management. Final report to Illinois Department of Conservation. W-110-R-2. Illinois Department of Conservation, Springfield, IL.

National Geographic Society. 1984. Great Rivers of the World, p.444.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 2003. “National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Assessment”, NOAA Publications. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/products/pubs_hypox.html, February 2006.

Riverweb Museum Consortium. 2003. “Illinois River Basics”, Mississippi Riverweb Museums. http://www.riverwebmuseums.org/river_facts/basics/illinois/index.htm, February 2006.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District, Mississippi Valley Division. 2004. “Illinois Waterway”. http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Brochures/IllinoisWaterway.asp, February 2006.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2004. “Big-head Carp, Asian Carp and the Great Lakes”, Great Lakes. http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/invasive/asiancarp/, February 2006.

Walsh, K. 2003. Great Rivers of the World: The Mississippi. World Almanac Library: Milwaukee, WI.