Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Generalized regions of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Availability and Use Science Program study of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain (MAP), a shapefile representing seven generalized regions of the MAP extent as defined by Painter and Westerman (2018) was compiled. The generalized regions provide a framework for analysis, visualization, and regional comparisons of local data within the MAP. Regions north of the Red River were based on those described by Ackerman (1996). The Grand Prairie region includes the area north and east of the Arkansas River and south and west of the White River within the MAP. The Cache region includes the area north and east of the White River and the area generally west of Crowley’s Ridge, which lies outside of the MAP extent (Painter and Westerman, 2018), bisects the northern part of the MAP, and has elevations 100 to 250 feet (ft) higher than the MAP (Ackerman, 1996). The Delta region, which is roughly equivalent to the Yazoo River drainage, lies predominately in Mississippi and covers much of the area east of the Mississippi River within the MAP. The Boeuf region covers the area north of the Red River and the Little Old River - Mississippi River confluence, the area south of the Arkansas River, and the area west of the Delta region within the MAP. The St. Francis region lies generally east of Crowley’s Ridge and north of the Delta region in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The regions south of the Red River and the Little Old River – Mississippi River confluence were based primarily on depositional environment (Saucier, 1994). The Atchafalaya region contains the Atchafalaya River. The Deltaic and Chenier Plains region lies south of the Atchafalaya region and covers the southernmost part of the MAP. In order to keep the regions contiguous, some relatively small parts of the Deltaic and Chenier Plains as defined by Saucier (1994) were included within the boundary of the Atchafalaya region defined for this study, and vice-versa. References Ackerman, D.J., 1996, Hydrology of the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer, South-Central United States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1416-D, 56 p., 8 pls. in pocket. Painter, J.A., and Westerman, D.A., 2018, Mississippi Alluvial Plain extent, November 2017: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F70R9NMJ. Saucier, R.T., 1994, Geomorphology and Quaternary geologic history of the Lower Mississippi Valley: U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS, Vols. I and II, 398 p., 28 pls.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5af4af97e4b0da30c1b44f05
Data Last Modified 2020-08-21T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id e8807907-045d-486a-9922-be2b8edd3f7f
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -92.7931, 28.9026, -88.2542, 37.4123
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 8a2b18d3e0675aad4c026114128537cedfe5d8eebec6fa3cc6f71b0c6cc764d0
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -92.7931, 28.9026, -92.7931, 37.4123, -88.2542, 37.4123, -88.2542, 28.9026, -92.7931, 28.9026}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.