During the first half of 1993, heavy rains in the Midwest United States caused the greatest flood ever recorded on the Upper Mississippi. The Mississippi River remained above flood stage from April through September of that year, and many of the dykes and water control systems along the rivers in this region were overwhelmed. These images from the Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper clearly show the flooded regions near St. Louis. The pink areas near the flooded regions show the scoured land from which the flood waters have receded. A comparison of the image during the flood with an image from a year before clearly shows the preponderance of cultivated fields in the lowland flooded region, evidence that floods and river meanderings have deposited rich soil in these regions in the past.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0