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64-689: The New Canal Light or (more commonly New Canal Lighthouse or New Basin Canal Lighthouse ) was first established in 1838 at the north end of the New Basin Canal which ran from Lake Pontchartrain to the Uptown or "American" section of the city which today is known as the New Orleans Central Business District . The canal was filled in about 1950, but the lighthouse remained on a jetty extending into

128-418: A 5th order Fresnel lens . In 1890 the structure was again replaced, with the light being raised to 49 feet (15 m). The 1890 structure was substantially rebuilt in 1901. It was damaged by hurricanes in 1903, 1915, 1926, and 1927. It was moved to its current location in 1910. After the 1927 damage it was raised on new concrete piers and in 1936, the breakwater surrounding it was filled in, putting land under

192-414: A breach may experience flooding similar to a natural event, while damage near a breach can be catastrophic, including carving out deep holes and channels in the nearby landscape. Under natural conditions, floodwaters return quickly to the river channel as water-levels drop. During a levee breach, water pours out into the floodplain and moves down-slope where it is blocked from return to the river. Flooding

256-495: A commonly cited total. Many were buried without a grave marker in the levee and roadway-fill beside the canal. Contemporary immigration records and other primary documents do not support a level of Irish population in the city sufficient to support the upper-end of the estimated deaths, and historian Laura D. Kelley, in her 2014 book The Irish in New Orleans , urged a downward revision of the number of estimated deaths due to

320-400: A controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also been built as field boundaries and as military defences . More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls . Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions (often of sandbags ) built hastily in a flood emergency. Some of

384-612: A distance of some 610 km (380 mi). The scope and scale of the Mississippi levees has often been compared to the Great Wall of China . The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recommends and supports cellular confinement technology (geocells) as a best management practice. Particular attention is given to the matter of surface erosion, overtopping prevention and protection of levee crest and downstream slope. Reinforcement with geocells provides tensile force to

448-422: A dyke may be a drainage ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named, e.g., Candle Dyke. In parts of Britain , particularly Scotland and Northern England , a dyke may be a field wall, generally made with dry stone . The main purpose of artificial levees is to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside and to slow natural course changes in

512-444: A high suspended sediment fraction and thus are intimately associated with meandering channels, which also are more likely to occur where a river carries large fractions of suspended sediment. For similar reasons, they are also common in tidal creeks, where tides bring in large amounts of coastal silts and muds. High spring tides will cause flooding, and result in the building up of levees. Both natural and man-made levees can fail in

576-565: A more limited scale until after World War II . It was filled in by about 1950, except for a half-mile-long stretch at the lakefront by the lighthouse, which has been used as a harbor for small boats and yachts and continues to exist. Much of the route became the Pontchartrain Expressway in the 1950s, which was incorporated into I-10 the following decade. The stretch from the Interstate to just shy of Robert E. Lee Blvd

640-428: A number of ways. Factors that cause levee failure include overtopping, erosion, structural failures, and levee saturation. The most frequent (and dangerous) is a levee breach . Here, a part of the levee actually breaks or is eroded away, leaving a large opening for water to flood land otherwise protected by the levee. A breach can be a sudden or gradual failure, caused either by surface erosion or by subsurface weakness in

704-491: A popular song that mentioned 10,000 Irish laborers dying from cholera during the canal's construction. Over the years, press reports rose to as high as 20,000 before dropping to the commonly heard 8,000 deaths. Contemporary press reports focused more on labor unrest when Irish workers recruited from Philadelphia went on strike to protest the canal's owner's failure to pay them according to the contracts, not worker deaths. The canal originally joined with Lake Pontchartrain around

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768-799: A property-boundary marker or drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike , which leads water from the catchwater drain , Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen , near Twenty and alongside the River Glen , Lincolnshire . In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads ,

832-525: A ridge and increasing the river channel's capacity. Alternatively, levees can be artificially constructed from fill , designed to regulate water levels. In some circumstances, artificial levees can be environmentally damaging . Ancient civilizations in the Indus Valley , ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China all built levees. Today, levees can be found around the world, and failures of levees due to erosion or other causes can be major disasters, such as

896-412: A shorter route to the ocean and begin building a new delta. Wave action and ocean currents redistribute some of the sediment to build beaches along the coast. When levees are constructed all the way to the ocean, sediments from flooding events are cut off, the river never migrates, and elevated river velocity delivers sediment to deep water where wave action and ocean currents cannot redistribute. Instead of

960-421: A shorter time interval means higher river stage (height). As more levees are built upstream, the recurrence interval for high-water events in the river increases, often requiring increases in levee height. During natural flooding, water spilling over banks rises slowly. When a levee fails, a wall of water held back by the levee suddenly pours out over the landscape, much like a dam break. Impacted areas far from

1024-447: A waterway to provide reliable shipping lanes for maritime commerce over time; they also confine the flow of the river, resulting in higher and faster water flow. Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high floods, along lakes or along polders . Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of impoldering, or as a boundary for an inundation area. The latter can be

1088-537: Is electrical resistivity tomography (ERT). This non-destructive geophysical method can detect in advance critical saturation areas in embankments. ERT can thus be used in monitoring of seepage phenomena in earth structures and act as an early warning system, e.g., in critical parts of levees or embankments. Large scale structures designed to modify natural processes inevitably have some drawbacks or negative impacts. Levees interrupt floodplain ecosystems that developed under conditions of seasonal flooding. In many cases,

1152-429: Is an elevated ridge , natural or artificial, alongside the banks of a river , often intended to protect against flooding of the area adjoining the river. It is usually earthen and often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines. Naturally occuring levees form on river floodplains following flooding, where sediment and alluvium is deposited and settles, forming

1216-546: Is below mean sea level. These typically man-made hydraulic structures are situated to protect against erosion. They are typically placed in alluvial rivers perpendicular, or at an angle, to the bank of the channel or the revetment , and are used widely along coastlines. There are two common types of spur dyke, permeable and impermeable, depending on the materials used to construct them. Natural levees commonly form around lowland rivers and creeks without human intervention. They are elongated ridges of mud and/or silt that form on

1280-420: Is important in order to design stable levee and floodwalls . There have been numerous studies to investigate the erodibility of soils. Briaud et al. (2008) used Erosion Function Apparatus (EFA) test to measure the erodibility of the soils and afterwards by using Chen 3D software, numerical simulations were performed on the levee to find out the velocity vectors in the overtopping water and the generated scour when

1344-451: Is permanently diverted through the gap. Sometimes levees are said to fail when water overtops the crest of the levee. This will cause flooding on the floodplains, but because it does not damage the levee, it has fewer consequences for future flooding. Among various failure mechanisms that cause levee breaches, soil erosion is found to be one of the most important factors. Predicting soil erosion and scour generation when overtopping happens

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1408-573: Is prolonged over such areas, waiting for floodwater to slowly infiltrate and evaporate. Natural flooding adds a layer of sediment to the floodplain. The added weight of such layers over many centuries makes the crust sink deeper into the mantle , much like a floating block of wood is pushed deeper into the water if another board is added on top. The momentum of downward movement does not immediately stop when new sediment layers stop being added, resulting in subsidence (sinking of land surface). In coastal areas, this results in land dipping below sea level,

1472-708: The National Register of Historic Places in 1985 as the New Canal Lighthouse . It was heavily damaged during the 2005 hurricane season by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita . The first floor had collapsed and its cupola had fallen off. In 2006, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation signed a lease with the United States Coast Guard to repair the damaged lighthouse. It was disassembled and

1536-525: The Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean . The Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient China also built large levee systems. Because a levee is only as strong as its weakest point, the height and standards of construction have to be consistent along its length. Some authorities have argued that this requires a strong governing authority to guide the work and may have been a catalyst for

1600-638: The Mississippi, stretching from Cape Girardeau , Missouri , to the Mississippi delta . They were begun by French settlers in Louisiana in the 18th century to protect the city of New Orleans . The first Louisiana levees were about 90 cm (3 ft) high and covered a distance of about 80 km (50 mi) along the riverside. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with the Mississippi River Commission, extended

1664-681: The building was put into storage. Reconstruction of the lighthouse began in February 2012 and was completed in 2013. The New Canal Lighthouse is located on 30°1′37″N 90°6′47″W  /  30.02694°N 90.11306°W  / 30.02694; -90.11306 (30.026944, -90.113056). 29°57′28″N 90°05′40″W  /  29.95778°N 90.09444°W  / 29.95778; -90.09444 Levee A levee ( / ˈ l ɛ v i / or / ˈ l ɛ v eɪ / ), dike ( American English ), dyke ( British English ; see spelling differences ), embankment , floodbank , or stop bank

1728-657: The catastrophic 2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans that occurred as a result of Hurricane Katrina . Speakers of American English use the word levee , from the French word levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever , 'to raise'). It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from

1792-614: The city near the River, via the canal, and used to build many uptown houses. The importance of the canal declined after World War I , especially with the opening of the Industrial Canal in 1923. In 1936 the Louisiana State Legislature passed a state constitutional amendment to close the canal. In 1937–38 the area back to Claiborne Avenue was filled in, but the rest of the length continued functioning on

1856-637: The city of Vancouver , British Columbia , there are levees (known locally as dikes, and also referred to as "the sea wall") to protect low-lying land in the Fraser River delta, particularly the city of Richmond on Lulu Island . There are also dikes to protect other locations which have flooded in the past, such as the Pitt Polder, land adjacent to the Pitt River , and other tributary rivers. Coastal flood prevention levees are also common along

1920-488: The development of systems of governance in early civilizations. However, others point to evidence of large-scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt , during which governance was far less centralized. Another example of a historical levee that protected the growing city-state of Mēxihco-Tenōchtitlan and the neighboring city of Tlatelōlco,

1984-588: The earliest levees were constructed by the Indus Valley civilization (in Pakistan and North India from c.  2600 BCE ) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended. Levees were also constructed over 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt , where a system of levees was built along the left bank of the River Nile for more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), stretching from modern Aswan to

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2048-479: The earth together. On the land side of high levees, a low terrace of earth known as a banquette is usually added as another anti-erosion measure. On the river side, erosion from strong waves or currents presents an even greater threat to the integrity of the levee. The effects of erosion are countered by planting suitable vegetation or installing stones, boulders, weighted matting, or concrete revetments . Separate ditches or drainage tiles are constructed to ensure that

2112-938: The foundation does not become waterlogged. Prominent levee systems have been built along the Mississippi River and Sacramento River in the United States , and the Po , Rhine , Meuse River , Rhône , Loire , Vistula , the delta formed by the Rhine, Maas/Meuse and Scheldt in the Netherlands and the Danube in Europe . During the Chinese Warring States period , the Dujiangyan irrigation system

2176-694: The history of the lighthouse, the environment and ecology of the Pontchartrain Basin, a Fresnel lens that was believed to have been in the lighthouse in the early 1900s, the work of the Foundation, and area history and recreation. New Basin Canal The New Basin Canal was constructed by the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, incorporated in 1831 with capital of 4 million US dollars . The intent

2240-450: The impact is two-fold, as reduced recurrence of flooding also facilitates land-use change from forested floodplain to farms. In a natural watershed, floodwaters spread over a landscape and slowly return to the river. Downstream, the delivery of water from the area of flooding is spread out in time. If levees keep the floodwaters inside a narrow channel, the water is delivered downstream over a shorter time period. The same volume of water over

2304-462: The inland coastline behind the Wadden Sea , an area devastated by many historic floods. Thus the peoples and governments have erected increasingly large and complex flood protection levee systems to stop the sea even during storm floods. The biggest of these are the huge levees in the Netherlands , which have gone beyond just defending against floods, as they have aggressively taken back land that

2368-549: The laboratory tests, empirical correlations related to average overtopping discharge were derived to analyze the resistance of levee against erosion. These equations could only fit to the situation, similar to the experimental tests, while they can give a reasonable estimation if applied to other conditions. Osouli et al. (2014) and Karimpour et al. (2015) conducted lab scale physical modeling of levees to evaluate score characterization of different levees due to floodwall overtopping. Another approach applied to prevent levee failures

2432-445: The lack of evidence to support the claims and the labor needs of other contemporary canal projects. She also noted that deaths from cholera epidemics in the early 1830s were later remembered as being suffered during the canal's construction. While it is certain workers died constructing the canal, the first claim of 10,000 deaths did not come until 1937 in a Times-Picayune article by Meigs O. Frost . The article included lyrics from

2496-421: The lake on a half mile long stretch of the canal that was left and is still used as a small boat and yachting harbor. The original lighthouse was built in 1838 on a foundation of sheet piling filled in with shells. The tower was octagonal, built of cypress , about 28 feet (8.5 m) high. The tower deteriorated badly and was replaced in 1855 with a square wood dwelling on screw piles with an iron lantern and

2560-528: The levee system beginning in 1882 to cover the riverbanks from Cairo, Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi delta in Louisiana. By the mid-1980s, they had reached their present extent and averaged 7.3 m (24 ft) in height; some Mississippi levees are as high as 15 m (50 ft). The Mississippi levees also include some of the longest continuous individual levees in the world. One such levee extends southwards from Pine Bluff , Arkansas , for

2624-420: The levee. A breach can leave a fan-shaped deposit of sediment radiating away from the breach, described as a crevasse splay . In natural levees, once a breach has occurred, the gap in the levee will remain until it is again filled in by levee building processes. This increases the chances of future breaches occurring in the same location. Breaches can be the location of meander cutoffs if the river flow direction

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2688-475: The levees in the area, created for the purpose of farming the fertile tidal marshlands. These levees are referred to as dykes. They are constructed with hinged sluice gates that open on the falling tide to drain freshwater from the agricultural marshlands and close on the rising tide to prevent seawater from entering behind the dyke. These sluice gates are called " aboiteaux ". In the Lower Mainland around

2752-543: The main channel, this will make levee overtopping more likely again, and the levees can continue to build up. In some cases, this can result in the channel bed eventually rising above the surrounding floodplains, penned in only by the levees around it; an example is the Yellow River in China near the sea, where oceangoing ships appear to sail high above the plain on the elevated river. Levees are common in any river with

2816-445: The majority of The Lake being drained in the 17th century. Levees are usually built by piling earth on a cleared, level surface. Broad at the base, they taper to a level top, where temporary embankments or sandbags can be placed. Because flood discharge intensity increases in levees on both river banks , and because silt deposits raise the level of riverbeds , planning and auxiliary measures are vital. Sections are often set back from

2880-470: The mid-city lowlands, into the city, ended in a turning basin at Rampart Street and Howard Avenue in what is now the New Orleans Central Business District . The canal was commercially important through the 19th century, and served additional uses such as improving drainage in nearby areas and being used to harvest the bald cypress trees in what is now the Lakeview neighborhood. They were brought into

2944-399: The ocean migrating inland, and salt-water intruding into freshwater aquifers. Where a large river spills out into the ocean, the velocity of the water suddenly slows and its ability to transport sand and silt decreases. Sediments begin to settle out, eventually forming a delta and extending to the coastline seaward. During subsequent flood events, water spilling out of the channel will find

3008-484: The overtopping water impinges the levee. By analyzing the results from EFA test, an erosion chart to categorize erodibility of the soils was developed. Hughes and Nadal in 2009 studied the effect of combination of wave overtopping and storm surge overflow on the erosion and scour generation in levees. The study included hydraulic parameters and flow characteristics such as flow thickness, wave intervals, surge level above levee crown in analyzing scour development. According to

3072-422: The present day intersection of Robert E. Lee and West End Boulevards, but jetties were added on both sides extending it farther into the lake. The New Canal Lighthouse or more commonly New Basin Canal Lighthouse was built on the far end of one of the jetties at the entrance to the canal. Starting from the entrance of the canal, it headed south through the swamp, cut through the high ground of Metairie Ridge, through

3136-454: The rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land and to protect their retreat (70  CE ). The word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank . It closely parallels the English verb to dig . In Anglo-Saxon , the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of

3200-413: The river floodplains immediately adjacent to the cut banks. Like artificial levees, they act to reduce the likelihood of floodplain inundation. Deposition of levees is a natural consequence of the flooding of meandering rivers which carry high proportions of suspended sediment in the form of fine sands, silts, and muds. Because the carrying capacity of a river depends in part on its depth, the sediment in

3264-440: The river to form a wider channel, and flood valley basins are divided by multiple levees to prevent a single breach from flooding a large area. A levee made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them is known as a spetchel . Artificial levees require substantial engineering. Their surface must be protected from erosion, so they are planted with vegetation such as Bermuda grass in order to bind

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3328-638: The riverbed, even up to a point where the riverbed is higher than the adjacent ground surface behind the levees, are found for the Yellow River in China and the Mississippi in the United States. Levees are very common on the marshlands bordering the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia , Canada . The Acadians who settled the area can be credited with the original construction of many of

3392-404: The soil to better resist instability. Artificial levees can lead to an elevation of the natural riverbed over time; whether this happens or not and how fast, depends on different factors, one of them being the amount and type of the bed load of a river. Alluvial rivers with intense accumulations of sediment tend to this behavior. Examples of rivers where artificial levees led to an elevation of

3456-414: The structure for the first time. From the 1960s through 2001 there was a USCG station at the site. The lighthouse was heavily damaged during the 2005 hurricane season by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita . The first floor had collapsed and its cupola had fallen off. In 2006, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation signed a lease with the United States Coast Guard to repair the damaged lighthouse. It

3520-492: The trait of the levee's ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains. The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word dijk , with the construction of dikes well attested as early as the 11th century. The 126-kilometer-long (78 mi) Westfriese Omringdijk , completed by 1250, was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus mentions that

3584-494: The water which is over the flooded banks of the channel is no longer capable of keeping the same number of fine sediments in suspension as the main thalweg . The extra fine sediments thus settle out quickly on the parts of the floodplain nearest to the channel. Over a significant number of floods, this will eventually result in the building up of ridges in these positions and reducing the likelihood of further floods and episodes of levee building. If aggradation continues to occur in

3648-482: The word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or to the bank. Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench – though it once had raised banks as well. In the English Midlands and East Anglia , and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south of England,

3712-642: Was built by the Qin as a water conservation and flood control project. The system's infrastructure is located on the Min River , which is the longest tributary of the Yangtze River , in Sichuan , China . The Mississippi levee system represents one of the largest such systems found anywhere in the world. It comprises over 5,600 km (3,500 mi) of levees extending some 1,000 km (620 mi) along

3776-405: Was complete enough to be opened to small vessels drawing 6 feet (1.8 m), with $ 0.375 per ton charged for passage. Over the next decade the canal was enlarged to 12 feet (3.7 m) deep, 100 feet (30 m) wide, and with shell roads alongside. No official count was kept of the deaths of the immigrant workers; estimates ranging from 500 to 20,000 and more have been published, with 8,000 being

3840-488: Was constructed during the early 1400s, under the supervision of the tlahtoani of the altepetl Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl. Its function was to separate the brackish waters of Lake Texcoco (ideal for the agricultural technique Chināmitls ) from the fresh potable water supplied to the settlements. However, after the Europeans destroyed Tenochtitlan, the levee was also destroyed and flooding became a major problem, which resulted in

3904-658: Was developed into the present-day New Basin Canal Park, a linear green space paralleling West End Boulevard. On November 4, 1990, the Irish Cultural Society of New Orleans dedicated a large Kilkenny marble Celtic cross in New Basin Canal Park to commemorate all of the Irish workers who perished constructing the canal. The lighthouse which stands at the entrance to the canal, was added to

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3968-634: Was disassembled and the building was put into storage. Reconstruction of the lighthouse began in February 2012 and was completed in 2013 by Certified Construction Professional of New Orleans, LA.. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 as the New Canal Lighthouse . It is now operated as the New Canal Lighthouse Museum and Education Center by the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation. The museum's exhibits include

4032-467: Was done by Irish immigrant laborers. The Irish workers died in great numbers, but the Company had no trouble finding more men to take their place, as shiploads of poor Irishmen arrived in New Orleans. Many were willing to risk their lives in hazardous, back-breaking work for a chance to earn $ 1 a day. By 1838, after an expense of $ 1 million, the 60-foot (18 m) wide 3.17-mile (5.10 km) long canal

4096-401: Was to build a shipping canal from Lake Pontchartrain through the swamp land to the booming uptown or "American" section of the city, to compete with the existing Carondelet Canal in the downtown Creole part of the city. Work commenced the following year. Yellow fever ravaged workers in the swamp in back of town, and the loss of slaves was judged too expensive; so most of the work

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