ABSTRACT
Since European settlement the majority of Iowa’s USA native prairie, woodland, and wetlands have been replaced by annual corn and soybean crops. Over the past two decades, landscape changes have been coupled with recent increasing trends in frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall to produce several severe floods. Following the devastating 2008 Iowa flood, the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) received funding to investigate basin-scale flood mitigation strategies. Large-scale hydrologic simulations were developed to identify regions with high runoff potential, where mitigation will provide the most benefit. The IFC is coordinating with local resource management agencies to locate smaller sub catchments for construction of pilot projects, monitoring, and a more detailed modeling effort. Based upon monitored data, numerical models will be used to predict potential cumulative benefits of numerous similar projects distributed throughout the watershed. Project results will provide guidance for effectively implementing distributed flood mitigation strategies to provide cumulative benefit for downstream communities.
