A controversial decision in 2011 to blow up Mississippi River levees reduced the risk of
flooding in a city upstream, lowering the
height of the rain - swollen river just before it reached its
peak, according to a newly published computer modeling analysis led by UC Irvine scientists.
Using a digital terrain model of the landscape and a hydrological model simulation the scientists found that planting trees on the floodplain and increasing the number of logjams, across 10 - 15 per cent of the total river length could reduce the
peak height of a potential
flood in the town by 6 per cent once the trees had grown for 25 years.