The Place with No Edge: An Intimate History of People, Technology, and the Mississippi River Delta by Adam Mandelman

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 943-944
Author(s):  
Drew Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
River Delta ◽  
Mississippi River Delta ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals More-than-human Infrastructure for Just Resilience: Learning from, Working with, and Designing for Bald Cypress Trees (Taxodium distichum) in the Mississippi River Delta

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-474
Author(s):  
Bonnie J. Gordon ◽  
Stanislav Roudavski
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
Taxodium Distichum ◽  
River Delta ◽  
Mississippi River Delta ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Bald Cypress ◽  
History Of ◽  
Flood Control Infrastructure ◽  
Cypress Trees

Humans design infrastructure for human needs, with limited regard for the needs of nonhumans such as animals and plants. Humans also often fail to recognise nonhuman lifeforms such as trees as fellow engineers designers, or architects, even though the contribution of trees to ecosystem services is well established and their right to justice ought to be recognised. Studies have shown that flood-control infrastructure near the Mississippi River inadvertently left Southern Louisiana more vulnerable to coastal threats. We examine this characteristic outcome and identify infrastructural injustices in multispecies communities. Based on theories in philosophy and design supported by historical analyses, we defend the proposals to extend 1) the understanding of resilience to include more-than-human communities; and 2) the notion of justice to include non-human stakeholders. The reframing in more-than-human terms is already under way in a variety of disciplines. However, these efforts rarely extend into considerations of practical design and have attracted criticism for insufficient engagement with historical processes and the accumulations of power and responsibility. To illustrate these injustices, we trace the history of bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) in the Mississippi River Delta and show how infrastructure impacted the trees. This analysis demonstrates that designs that do not consider the needs of vulnerable stakeholders can cause harm in multispecies communities. In response, we propose that humans can work to improve infrastructural resilience by including humans and nonhumans as collaborators.

Carbon storage in the Mississippi River delta enhanced by environmental engineering

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 846-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Shields ◽  
Thomas S. Bianchi ◽  
David Mohrig ◽  
Jack A. Hutchings ◽  
William F. Kenney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
River Delta ◽  
Environmental Engineering ◽  
Mississippi River Delta

The Effects of Hurricane Camille on the Marshes of the Mississippi River Delta

Ecology ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1118-1123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Chabreck ◽  
A. W. Palmisano
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
River Delta ◽  
Mississippi River Delta
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