Extensive floodplains, often miles wide, are common in many rivers throughout the country, particularly in the Southeast. Approaches have been developed to assess the effects of flow alterations on floodplains and associated plant communities, including:
- Floodplain Inundation Method (Benke et al. 2000)
- Radar-based modeling (Townsend and Foster 2002).
Approaches to assessing the effects of instream flows on floodplains have been applied on the Ogeechee River, Georgia (Benke et al. 2000), and on the Catawba River, at the Catawba-Wateree Project (FERC Project No. 2232), North Carolina.
4.1.9.1 Selected references
Annear, T., I. Chisholm, H. Beecher, A. Locke, P. Aarrestad, N. Burkhart, C. Coomer, C. Estes, J. Hunt, R. Jacobson, G. Jobsis, J. Kauffman, J. Marshall, K. Mayes, C. Stalnaker, and R. Wentworth. 2004. Instream Flows for Riverine Resource Stewardship, revised edition. Instream Flow Council, Cheyenne, WY.
Benke, A. C., I. Chaubey, G. M. Ward, and E. L. Dunn. 2000. Flood pulse dynamics of an unregulated river floodplain in the southeastern U. S. coastal plain. Ecology 81: 2730-2741.
Townsend, P. A., and J. R. Foster. 2002. A synthetic aperture radar-based model to assess historical changes in lowland floodplain hydroperiod. Water Resources Research 38: 20.1-20.10.
