Effects of Mississippi River Borrow Area Design on Riverine Sediment Transport Using Delft 3D

This research uses a Delft3D model to investigate the impacts of Mississippi River borrow areas on the Mississippi River navigation channel. The largest navigation concerns for the Mississippi River are operation and maintenance costs down; this includes costs of transportation and dredging. Borrow areas are created to supplement beneficial use of dredge material in various projects. Borrow areas are designed to a standard set of guidelines, according to Coastal Protection and Restoration authority (CPRA), and consider impacts to the navigation channel by requiring and minimum distance from the navigation channel. This study models the total sediment transport and amount of infilling using each of the design borrow areas. Ultimately this study showed that the presence of borrow areas does not affect the navigation channel locally, but downstream areas can experience sedimentation along channel edges and in the navigation channel in different cases.