chapter 2 piney hills and coastal marshes: the geography of louisiana

Chapter 2Piney Hills and Coastal Marshes:

The Geography of Louisiana

Chapter 2 Themes: • State Symbols (pp. 20-21)• Physical and Cultural Geography (pp. 22-24)• Time Zones (p. 25)• Natural Land Regions (pp. 26-29) • Rivers and Bayous (pp. 30-35) • Controlling Louisiana’s Rivers (pp. 36-38) • Lakes (p. 39) • Climate (pp. 40-41)• Hurricanes (pp. 42-44)• Population; Cultural Regions (pp. 44-46) • Chapter Review (p. 47)

State Symbols website

• http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/la_symb.htm

Louisiana’s State Flag

State Bird:The Brown

Pelican

State Flower: Magnolia

State Tree: The Bald Cypress

State Dog: Catahoula Cur (Leopard Dog)

State Symbols

• Flag/Motto: “Union, Justice, and Confidence”

• Bird: Brown Pelican• Flower: Magnolia• Tree: Bald Cypress• Dog: Catahoula Cur

I. Physical and Cultural Geography• Geography: the study of places, their

locations, and their physical and human characteristics

• Physical geography: the study of landforms, oceans, weather, and climate

• Cultural geography: the study of how people have interacted with, changed, and adapted to different places on the earth

Louisiana’s physical geography has shaped its cultural geography.

GLEs: 2, 3, 7, 11

Geopolitical Map of

Louisiana

Bayou Segnette State Park

What do you remember?

• Name one way Louisiana’s physical geography has shaped its cultural geography.

• A: Waterways often determine where towns will be built, frequent flooding motivates people to move off floodplains and onto higher ground, natural resource development attracts people looking for work.

• http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Maps/creole_maps_subregions.html

A. Geographic Location• Resembles a boot• Florida Parishes stretch from Baton

Rouge to Hammond to Bogalusa• Of the 50 states, LA ranks 31st in size• 3,600 square miles of water (1/4 of the

state is wet)

• What percentage of our nation’s wetlands is in Louisiana?

• A: one-third

Louisiana’s Location in the United States

Florida Parishes

West Baton Rouge Include

B. BoundariesFour natural boundaries:

• Mississippi River and Pearl River to the east• Gulf of Mexico to the south• Sabine River to the west

Three artificial boundaries: • 33 north latitude: Separates Louisiana and

Arkansas• 31 north latitude: Separates the Florida Parishes

from Mississippi• 94 west longitude: Separates Louisiana from Texas

Louisiana’s Boundaries

Disputed Land

**Is it Louisiana . . . or Mississippi?

(Read more on page 24)

• What two islands on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi river belong to the state of Mississippi?

• A: Giles island and Davis Island

**Time Zones (Read more on page 25)

• Earth has 24 time zones.• United States has six.• Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern

are the four time zones in the contiguous (connected) United States.

GLEs: 1

U.S. Time Zones

• Time increases by one hour in each time zone when you travel in which direction?

• A: East

II. Natural Land Regions• Determined by climate, soil, vegetation, and

relief• Relief: the difference in elevation between

the highest and lowest points of areao Flat land = low reliefo Hilly land = high relief

• Three natural regions: o Coastal Marsheso Floodplainso Uplands

GLEs: 5, 8, 9, 14

Louisiana’s Natural Regions

• Name Louisiana’s three main natural regions.

• A: Coastal Marshes, floodplains, and uplands

A. Coastal Marshes• Louisiana Gulf Coast is mostly coastal

marshes.• Vegetation is grasses and other plants;

trees are uncommon.

**New Orleans’ Cities of the Dead

(Read more on page 27)

**Louisiana Prairies (Read more on page 28)

Ecosystem of the Prairies

• When the French first came to the Louisiana region, one third of the area was what kind of land?

• A: Prairie

B. Floodplains• Low, flat valleys through which river flow• Includes: Swamps, sloughs, bayous, and

lakes• Leafy deciduous trees (cypress, oak,

hickory, pecan, magnolia, tupelo gum, and cottonwood)

• Canebrakes• Rich, fertile land, which is good for

agriculture

C. Uplands• Areas with Highest elevation in the state• Formed by magma pressure and tectonic

forces, which pushed the land upward• Erosion washed away soft material,

leaving rocky hills.• Piney Hills (largest upland area)• Driskill Mountain, the highest point in the

state, is 535 feet above sea level.• Coniferous, evergreen trees

• What is Louisiana’s highest landmark, and how high is it?

• A: Driskill Mountain, 535 feet above sea level

**Kisatchie National Forest (Read more about it on page 29)

The Kisatchie Forest

Kisatchie Campground

Kisatchie National Park Area

Kisatchie Website

• http://www.fs.fed.us/r8/kisatchie/

III. Rivers and Bayous

Our many waterways make our state:• Productive• Famous• Mysterious• Home to a unique ecosystem

GLEs: 2, 9, 11

Louisiana’s Waterways

A. Mississippi River• Main artery of Louisiana • Largest river in the United States• Fourth largest river in the world

The Mississippi River

Mississippi River Drainage Basin

• Name three of the 5 main rivers that drain into the Mississippi River.

• A: Missouri, Arkansas, Red, Ohio, and Tennessee

• The Mississippi River begins its journey toward the Gulf of Mexico in which U.S. state?

• A: Minnesota

Dugdemona

B. Red River• Second longest river in Louisiana• High salt content because it flows over an

underground salt dome • Only major river in Louisiana that has

white water rapids• Rapides parish (French for rapids)

Locks and Dams on the Red River

C. Atchafalaya River and Basin• Longest distributary (branch of a river that

flows away from the main stream) of the Mississippi River

• Half of all the nation’s migratory birds migrate to the Atchafalaya.

• Basin supplies the world with 23 million pounds of crawfish a year.

The Atchafalaya Basin

D. Ouachita River• Begins in the mountains of Arkansas and

runs through northeast Louisiana• Regulated by a series of locks that allow

commercial barge traffic to travel to Arkansas

Ouachita River

E. The Sabine, Pearl, and Calcasieu Rivers

• The Sabine River forms the border between Texas and Louisiana.

• The Pearl River forms the border between Mississippi and the toe of the Louisiana boot.

• The Calcasieu River lies within the state and is often used for transportation.

F. Bayou Teche

• Joins the Atchafalaya near the Gulf of Mexico

• The Acadians (Cajuns) settled along its banks.

G. Bayou Lafourche

• Exits the Mississippi River at Donaldsonville• Many French, Spanish, Africans, and Native

Americans settled along its banks.• Highway 1, which runs the length of the

bayou, is called the “Longest Street in America.”

**Natural and Scenic Rivers (Read more about it on page 33)

H. Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

The 3,000-mile Gulf Intracoastal Waterway allows ships to travel from Texas to Florida without sailing into the Gulf.

Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

• What inland route provides safe passage from Texas to Florida?

• A: Intracoastal Waterway

Lock design for the Panama Canal

Gatun Locks for the Panama Canal

Holly Beach

I. The Gulf of Mexico • Fifth largest sea in the world• Covers almost 600,000 square miles • Warm waters affect Louisiana’s climate

and economy.

IV. Controlling Louisiana’s Rivers

GLEs: 2, 9, 14, 15, 17

• Levees

• Old River Control Structure

• Log Jams

• Spillways

• Locks and Dams

A. Levees• Built along both sides of a river• Earliest ones built by the French in the 1700s.• Raised sides keep water inside the channel,

protecting the land outside the levee from flooding.

• If too much water is confined during heavy rains, the levee can break and flood the surrounding land. This is what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

• Prevent sediment from depositing along the coast, contributing to coastal erosion.

Levees

Flood of 1927

Flood of 1927

B. Old River Control Structure• Built in the 1960s at the head of the

Atchafalaya River• Channels half of the Mississippi River’s

water and all of the Red River’s water into the Atchafalaya River

• Kept the Mississippi River from changing courses

The Old River Control Structure complex, showing the three dams at the outlet to the Atchafalaya River. View is to the east-southeast.

Concordia Parish, Louisiana is on the right / foreground and Wilkinson County, Mississippi on the left / background

Dams

C. The “Old” Atchafalaya• Log jam blocked the head of the river and

acted as a dam, preventing water from the Mississippi River from flowing into it.

• In 1831, Captain Henry Miller Shreve cut a shorter channel from the Mississippi to the Red River to give steamboats easier access.

• The channel washed out more and became Old River, allowing more Mississippi River water to flow into the Atchafalaya.

• The log jam was cleared, and the Red River began flowing into the Atchafalaya, bringing a large amount of sediment with it.

D. The “New” Atchafalaya• Increased sediment from Red River created

natural levees.• The Atchafalaya became a larger river.• Swamps and lakes filled in.• Deciduous forests sprang up.• Six Mile Lake and most of Grand Lake

disappeared.• The Atchafalaya Bay is predicted to fill with

sediment over the next 50 years, making it a coastal marsh.

E. More Changes for the Atchafalaya? • The Atchafalaya River’s route to the Gulf is

shorter and lower than the Mississippi’s and could cause problems for the river economy

• The Mississippi could change course and take the easier route, causing:

o Morgan City and other towns to floodo Ocean-going vessels to be unable to travel due to shallow

waters.o Destruction of the economies of Baton Rouge and New

Orleans.o Saltwater intrusion, which would ruin the drinking water in

Baton Rouge and New Orleans.o Failed crops and erosion.o The lower Mississippi River to become a bay of the Gulf.

**The Three Rivers (Read more about it on page 37)

F. Bonnet Carré and Morganza Spillways

• Bonnet Carré is on the east bank of the Mississippi, upstream from New Orleans.

• Morganza is on the west bank of the Mississippi, upstream from Baton Rouge.

• During floods, one-quarter of the Mississippi’s water can be diverted through the spillway into Lake Pontchartrain.

• Morganza protects the levee system by diverting water out of the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya Basin.

• It relieves pressure on the state’s levee system.

Spillways

J. Bennett Johnston Waterway• Is on the Red River• Has five locks and dams• Deepened the river so barge traffic

could reach Shreveport• Controlled flooding more effectively• Improved water quality• Slowed the current, so salt and

sediment settle, making the water cleaner

V. Types of Lakes• Oxbow• Depression• Raft• Coastal• Reservoirs

GLEs: 8, 9, 15

A. Oxbow Lakes• Crescent or horseshoe-shaped lakes

are oxbow lakes• Examples: False River and Lake Bruin

How an Oxbow Lake Forms

1. A river floods and cuts off a meander.

2. The meander fills with sediment, which forms a lake.

Oxbow Lake along Red River

B. Depression Lakes• Created when land sinks along a fault

and fills with water

Examples:o Catahoula Lakeo Calcasieu Lakeo Lake Maurepaso Lake Pontchartrain

Lake Pontchartrain Ariel View

C. Raft Lakes• Found only along the Red River• Dams caused bayous to flood which

resulted the formation of lakes

Examples: o Lake Bistineauo Black Lakeo Saline Lakeo Iatt Lake

Lake Bistineau

D. Coastal Lakes• Found along the Gulf Coast• Formed when cheniers slowed the flow

of the rivers into the Gulf, causing pools of brackish water to build up

Examples: White Lake and Grand Lake

White Lake Coastal Lake

Reservoirs

• E. Reservoirs» Manmade lakes, found mostly in North

Louisiana.

»Examples: Caney Lake, Lake» D’Arbonne, Lake Claiborne,

Poverty Point,» and Toledo Bend

Toledo Bend Reservoir

VI. Climate• Weather is temperature, wind, and rain on a

daily basis.• Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a

region. • Climate is affected by latitude, altitude, and

nearness to large land masses or large bodies of water.

• The state’s southern latitude and nearness to the Gulf of Mexico gives the state a warm, stable climate.

GLEs: 15

• Name 4 influences that affect a region’s long-term climate.

• A: Latitude, altitude, nearness to large landmass or large bodies of water.

A. Humid Subtropical Climate• Hot summers, mild winters, and abundant

precipitation • Favorable to tourism and agriculture• Lower winter energy costs can help make

operating a business, school, or agency less expensive.

• Certain plants and animals thrive in this climate.

Climate of Southeastern U.S.

B. Precipitation• 58 inches of rain fall each year• Florida Parishes receive the most rain.• Northwestern parishes receive the least

rain.

**Two Extremes (Read more about it on page 40)

C. Spring and Summer• Spring weather is typically mild, and

tornadoes can appear during thunderstorms.• Summer temperatures reach over 100

degrees in North Louisiana.• High humidity throughout state

D. Fall and WinterAutumn: the weather is typically mild although the temperature sometimes dips below freezing.

Autumn in Louisiana

**Strange Snowfall (Read more about it on page 41)

December 11, 2008Rare Snow day at FJH

VII. HurricanesIntro with Flipchart

GLEs: 8, 15

Hurricanes

Hurricane Andrew

A. Hurricane Ratings and Formation• Hurricanes start in the moist air over warm waters,

such as the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.• Hurricane season is June 1 through November 30.• Severity is rated on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane

Scale.• Categories range from 1 to 5, depending on the

storm’s severity• Category 1: wind speeds are 74-95 miles per hour• Category 5: winds over 155 mph

• Southeastern Louisiana is hit most often.

B. Storm Surge• Most dangerous part of a hurricane• Ocean water rises several feet higher

than normal.• High winds push the wall of water

onshore.• Can reach as high as 20 feet

C. Naming Hurricanes• Only female names were used until 1979, at which

time male names were added.• Male and female names are used alternately in

alphabetical order.• Noteworthy hurricane names may be retired and

never used again .• Audrey and Andrew were the most powerful

hurricanes to hit Louisiana until Katrina and Rita.• Audrey hit Cameron Parish on June 28, 1957—

killing 400.• Andrew struck Atchafalaya Basin in 1992 as a

Category 3—killed 17.

D. Katrina and Rita• New Orleans is vulnerable to hurricanes

because it is below sea level and depends on the levees to protect it.

• August 2005: Katrina’s rain caused the levees to break; water poured into the city.

• Approximately 1,000 people were killed, 1 million people lost homes, and the city suffered more than $100 billion in damages.

• Rita hit the Gulf a few weeks later, flooding New Orleans and the surrounding parishes a second time.

Flooding from Hurricane Katrina

Aerial view of New Orleans

**Tornadoes! (Read more about it on page 43)

• Form over land and are created by thunderstorms.

• Most common during the spring, when cold and warm fronts collide.

• Ranked from 1 to 5 using the Fujita Scaleo Category 1: wind speeds from 73-112 mpho Category 5: wind speed from 261-318 mph

• Northwest Louisiana experiences the most.

Tornadoes

VIII. Population

GLEs: 5, 10, 12

A. Growth Rates• Louisiana attracts fewer immigrants than any other

state.• Growth rate is 5.9 percent (1/2 the national average).• Birth rate is dropping.• Population is aging.• Louisiana offers few jobs in high-tech industries;

difficult times in the oil and gas industries have caused additional job loss.

• This has a negative impact on the state’s economy and the quality of education and services that can be provided to Louisiana’s citizens.

B. Population DensityDefinition: The average number of people

living in an area • Average population density in LA is 103

people per square mile.

• Average population density without New Orleans is 66 people per square mile.

• Average population density in the U.S. is

79 people per square mile.

C. Cultural Regions• South Louisianao Strong French cultureo Catholic Church is prominent.o Traditional Cajun foods, architecture, and music

remain popular.• North Louisiana and the Florida Parisheso More like other parts of the Deep Southo Settled by English-speaking Protestantso Little French influence is evident.

• Western Louisiana o Spanish cultural influences dating back to settlers

who began arriving in the 1700s.

Stuffed Mirlitons

Chapter Review

GLEs: 4, 15