Southwest Pass Sedimentation and Dredging Data Analysis

Abstract

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) maintains the Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the Gulf of Mexico Project as part of its Navigation mission to enable safe, reliable, and cost-effective marine transportation throughout the country. The entrance channel for this vast inland port system is known as Southwest Pass (SWP) and is the most highly utilized commercial deep-draft waterway in the nation. In recent years, the SWP has been prone to rapid-onset shoaling, with predictive lead times based on upstream river discharge rates of only about 14 days. The daily survey frequency in combination with the Dredging Quality Management (DQM) dredging records now available provide the framework for better understanding the dynamic shoaling conditions and the relative role of USACE dredging activity toward restoring full channel navigability.