382 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



In the southern Appalachians, Glenn 40 states, the flood loss during 

 1910 reached some $18,000,000 and in the following year totaled 

 about $9,000,000 more. 



The Wabash and White River at flood in January 1930 did 

 $6,862,000 damage (Monthly Weather Review for February 1930). 

 The Southern Appalachian flood of July 1916 did nearly $22,000,000 

 damage (Ibid., for August 1916). 



Records indicate that floods in the Ohio basin are on the increase. 

 Leighton 41 shows by his studies on the three' major branches of the 

 Ohio River above Wheeling, W.Va. (the Allegheny, Youghiogheny, 

 and Monongahela), for the period 1885-1907, that "a marked 

 increase in the number of days of floods " is clearly indicated. Table 8 

 points out the trend in flood increases from 1871 to 1922 in different 

 portions of the watershed of the Ohio Valley. The agreement of data 

 by the United States Weather Bureau for Cincinnati, Ohio, with that 

 for Pittsburgh, Pa., by the flood commissioner, implies that causes 

 of flood increase are similar on the basins of the Muskingum, Kana- 

 wha, Scioto, and Big Sandy Rivers to those on the Allegheny and 

 Monongahela Rivers above Pittsburgh. Ashe 42 has indicated an 

 increase in number of days of flood on the Ohio River at Wheeling, 

 W.Va., where the flood stage is 20 feet, from 102 (1838-47) to 220 

 (1898-1907) and in number of floods from 34 for the early period to 

 55 for the latter. In the southern part of the drainage on the Cum- 

 berland River at Burnside, Ky., he notes a similar increase in the 

 number of floods above the stage of 40 feet (table 8). In the Ten- 

 nessee River Valley, King anticipates higher flood crests for storms 

 of the same magnitude than those in the past. It is probable that 

 the frequency of floods is increasing here as in the eastern por.tion 

 of the Ohio basin. 



TABLE 8. Trend in number of floods, Ohio River Basin, 1871-1922 



1 Data by Ashe, W. W., 1905 In Preliminary Report of the Inland Waterways Commission. 60th 

 Cong., 1st sess. S.Doc. 325, p. 522. 



2 Data from Report of Flood Commission, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1911, p. 46. 



3 Data from The Spring Floods of 1922, by H. C. Frankenfield, U.S.Dept. of Agr. Mo. Wea. Rev. 

 Suppl. 22. 1923. 



* Includes 1880. 



Includes the floods during January 1911. 



< Glenn, L. C. 1911 Denudation and Erosion in the Southern Appalachian Region. U.S.Geol.Sur. 

 Prof. Paper 72. 



Leighton, M. O. Floods. U.S.Geol. Survey. Water Supply Paper 234. 1909. 



42 Ashe, W. W. Special Relations of Forests to Rivers in the United States. Preliminary Report of the 

 Inland Waterways Com., 60th Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Doc. 325. 1905. 



