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Person

Elizabeth N Heal

Hydrologist
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center

Email: eheal@usgs.gov
Office Phone: 225-236-7111
ORCID: 0000-0002-1196-4708

Location
1289 McD Drive
Dover , DE 19901
US

Supervisor: Wade H Kress
Flood Inundation Extent and Depth in Selected Areas of Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in March 2016
Heavy rainfall occurred across Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi in March 2016 as a result of a slow-moving southward dip in the jetstream, funneling tropical moisture into parts of the Gulf Coastal States and the Mississippi River Valley. The storm caused major flooding in the north and southeastern parts of Louisiana and in eastern Texas. Flooding also occurred in the Mississippi River Valley in Arkansas and Mississippi. Over 26 inches of rain were reported near Monroe, Louisiana over the duration of the storm event. In March 2016, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) personnel made over 490 streamflow measurements at over 375 locations in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Many of those streamflow...
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Reelfoot Lake, in northwestern Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky, is home to a Federal wildlife refuge, a State wildlife-management area, and to a tourism industry that is based on hunting, fishing, birding, and the area’s unique cultural history. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, began a series of hydrologic investigations to support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in managing lake level. The objective was to develop operational models that preserved the historic patterns of variability that had characterized the lake for the past 60 years while meeting seasonal water-level targets (Heal and others, 2022). Preliminary models for gate operations...
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Nutrient and phytoplankton data indicate poor environmental health in four oxbow lakes in central Louisiana suggesting that long-term agriculture practices and increases in shoreline development have accelerated eutrophication. Surface-water quality and phytoplankton indicators of eutrophication were examined at Lake Bruin, Lake St. John, Lake St. Joseph, and False River Lake along an eutrophication gradient. These oxbow lakes are cut-off meanders of the Mississippi River that do not receive overbank flow from the river due to the levee system built in the early twentieth century. Oxbows have formed at various times in the last few hundred years as the Mississippi River carves a more efficient hydrologic route to...
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The State of Louisiana experienced widespread flooding during the extreme rainfall events of March and August 2016. The City of Central, Louisiana, which lies above the confluence of the Amite and Comite Rivers, is bordered on the east and west, respectively, by these rivers. The city incurred extensive damage from both events, in particular the August 2016 flood in which the river basins received up to 30 inches of documented rainfall. Many streamgages in the area recorded peak-of-record flood levels from the event. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in cooperation with the City of Central, created a digital flood inundation map library to depict estimated areal extents and depth of flooding along 14.5 and 20.2...
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In cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Transportation, the U.S. Geological Survey developed a StreamStats web application (https://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/) that provides analytical tools useful for water-resources planning and management (Ries and others, 2017). This data set presents the lidar-derived flow direction, flow accumulation, streamline, and hydro-enforced digital elevation model raster data used for analysis in StreamStats. Rasters are included for each of the following hydrologic unit codes (HUCs): 03040101, 03040102, 03040103, 03040104, 03040105, 03040201, 03040202, 03040203, 03040204, 03040205, 03040206, 03040207, 03040208, 03050101, 03050102, 03050103, 03050104, 03050105, 03050106,...
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