Environment, Coasts, Oceans, & Infrastructure

Rising Tide- The Great Mississippi Flood by John Barry is really intriguing to understand the history of world's one of the largest rivers and attempts to tame the river. As a primarily hydraulics engineer, I'm amazed by John Barry has explained river flow complexities without going into modeling.  

I agree. Rising Tide is a marvelous book and rightly proclaimed one of the 50 best books of the past 50 years. 

One issue that Barry doesn't get quite right is the argument for and against levees. He oversimplifies the arguments. Charlie Little and David Biedenharn , river engineering experts, have said that are "many simple, easy to understand AND WRONG methods to control rivers." At one point Barry acknowledges that it's a complicated set of issues but he doesn't adequately convey those complexities to the reader.

Rising Tide- The Great Mississippi Flood by John Barry is really intriguing to understand the history of world's one of the largest rivers and attempts to tame the river. As a primarily hydraulics engineer, I'm amazed by John Barry has explained river flow complexities without going into modeling.  

I agree. Rising Tide is a marvelous book and rightly proclaimed one of the 50 best books of the past 50 years. 

One issue that Barry doesn't get quite right is the argument for and against levees. He oversimplifies the arguments. Charlie Little and David Biedenharn , river engineering experts, have said that are "many simple, easy to understand AND WRONG methods to control rivers." At one point Barry acknowledges that it's a complicated set of issues but he doesn't adequately convey those complexities to the reader.

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William McAnally Ph.D., P.E., D.CE, D.NE, F.ASCE
ENGINEER
Columbus MS
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2023 07:43 AM
From: Ushakar Jha
Subject: Modeling unsteady flows in large scale rivers with secondary flows

Rising Tide- The Great Mississippi Flood by John Barry is really intriguing to understand the history of world's one of the largest rivers and attempts to tame the river. As a primarily hydraulics engineer, I'm amazed by John Barry has explained river flow complexities without going into modeling.  

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Ushakar Jha P.E., M.ASCE
V.P. of Project Engineering
Rye Development
Winchester MA

Rising Tide- The Great Mississippi Flood by John Barry is really intriguing to understand the history of world's one of the largest rivers and attempts to tame the river. As a primarily hydraulics engineer, I'm amazed by John Barry has explained river flow complexities without going into modeling.  

. . . Rather, it moves south in layers and whorls, like an uncoiling rope made up of a multitude of discrete fibers, each one following an independent and unpredictable path, each one separately and together capable of snapping like a whip . . . The collision of river and earth at these bends creates tremendous turbulence: currents can drive straight down to the bottom of the river, sucking at whatever lies on the surface, scouring out holes often several hundred feet deep. Thus the Mississippi is a series of deep pools and shallow "crossings," and the movement of water from depth to shallows adds still further force and complexity. These lines – in the simplicity of poetic and philosophized beauty – can easily fit into the descriptive specter of any large alluvial river dynamics.

• As a historian and a story teller, John Barry is well poised to write it as such – and he did it brilliantly. It is not supposed to be a quantitative technical treatise – but a qualitative one – nevertheless important, as it appeals to the thinking of general public – presenting alternative views and insights for engineers to debate, ponder and even to address.

• Such a writing is not easy for scientists and engineers. I remember reading the difficulty Stephen Hawking faced in writing his popular book, A Brief History of Time. His first draft was all smeared with red editorial remarks. He was told that every technical jargon and equation he wrote would scare away readers. He was advised to write in plain lucid English to capture wide swath of readers. He needed that to raise money for his expensive treatment of debilitating illness.

• Coming back to Barry's 1997 book, there are many reviews on this book – here is one review (ASCE Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, August 1998) that caught my attention . . . Rising Tide is a powerful and complex story that illuminates timeless conflicts that still provoke passionate debate. The conflicts include big government versus local government, special interests versus the interests of the public, and people versus nature. The book is also a classical American story. It shows how individuals shaped major events in American history. Its main characters are heroes with good intentions, but gaping flaws. All of this makes for interesting reading by a wide audience. It is no wonder, therefore, that Rising Tide has been the subject of a number of reviews in both engineering and literary circles . . .

• Summing up, Rising Tide is not and cannot claim to replace various modeling tools and efforts that are usually employed in river management works. And it is obvious, why so. Perhaps the 1995 NAP 4969 document is a good source – that presents some of the challenging issues a river engineer often encounters.

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Dr Dilip K Barua, PhD

Website Links and Profile

Rising Tide- The Great Mississippi Flood by John Barry is really intriguing to understand the history of world's one of the largest rivers and attempts to tame the river. As a primarily hydraulics engineer, I'm amazed by John Barry has explained river flow complexities without going into modeling.