Tree ring anatomical variability as an indicator for large-magnitude spring flooding in the Lower Mississippi Basin

Abstract:

Predicting the magnitude and frequency of floods relies on instrumental measurements of flood stage and discharge, however instrumental observations prior to the late-nineteenth century are rare. Using paleoproxies such as tree rings to study floods that occurred before the instrumental record, can help provide context for the modern flood record especially the variability of flood recurrence patterns. Riparian trees growing on flooded sites often record flood events as inter- and intra-annual variability in size, shape and arrangement of vessels in the annual xylem growth increment. In this study, we used anomalous anatomical features as well as a modified measure of earlywood (EW) vessel width of oak (Quercus sp.) annual tree rings to identify large-magnitude spring-season flood events at three locations in the Lower Mississippi River (LMR) basin for the past ~300 years. We compared the flood-ring anomaly and EW chronologies with daily river stage height data at several locations and these comparisons indicate that our new flood ring records can individually and jointly explain significant amounts of the variance in both stage height and number of days in flood during spring flood events. Our analyses indicate that our chronologies are recording nearly all large observed LMR floods in the 20^th century, and provide a new record of similar events in the 18^th and 19th centuries. These results suggest that tree-rings can be effectively used to develop and improve pre-instrumental flood records throughout the LMW region and potentially other similar systems.