GROUP 2

Mississippi River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lake_Itasca_Mississippi_Source.jpg The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the United States, with a length of 2,320 miles (3,730 km) from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River is part of the Missouri-Mississippi river system, which is the largest river system in North America and among the largest in the world: by length (3,900 miles (6,300 km)), it is the fourth longest, and by its average discharge of 572,000 cu ft/s (16,200 m³/s), it is the tenth largest. The name Mississippi is derived from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River") or gichi-ziibi ("Big River").It supplies water for the cities and industries that have located along its banks. More and more the Mississippi's importance is emphasized as America continues to grow. This great river is, truly, one of the Nation's outstanding assets. Uncontrolled, it would be just as great a liability.

Problems:
Drainage area:
The Mississippi River drains a majority of the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains, except for the areas drained to the Hudson Bay via the Red River of the North, by the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, the Rio Grande (and numerous other rivers in Texas), the Alabama River-Tombigbee River, and the Chattahoochee River-Appalachicola River. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico (and pollutes it with the waste from the north) about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey's number is 2,340 miles (3,770 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is about 90 days.

Discharge:
The Mississippi river discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (7,000–20,000 m3/s). Although it is the 5th largest river in the world by volume, this flow is a mere fraction of the output of the Amazon, which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m3/s) during wet seasons. On average the Mississippi has only 9% the flow of the Amazon River but is nearly twice that of the Columbia River and almost 6 times the volume of the Colorado River.

Uses:
Navigation and Economic Use:
The lower river, which has a relatively narrow but deep channel, is navigable for oceangoing ships upstream to Baton Rouge, La. From there to Cairo a 4-m-deep (12-ft) channel is maintained. From Cairo to Minneapolis and on the other navigable streams (the Cumberland, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Arkansas, and Missouri rivers), a 3-m-deep (9-ft) channel is maintained in most places. About 24,150 km (15,000 mi) of the system are presently navigable, and river traffic has experienced significant growth in recent years. The cargoes transported on more than 8,000 towboats consist mainly of petrochemicals from the Gulf of Mexico and grain from the Midwest.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River#Drainage_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River#Discharge
http://www.gatewayno.com/history/Mississippi.html