The Effect of the Lake Chicot Renovation Project on the Fishery of a Mississippi River Oxbow Lake
A renovation project on Lake Chicot, a 1,417-ha Arkansas oxbow lake, was undertaken to improve water quality and fisheries productivity negatively impacted by surrounding agricultural land and ensuing drainage. A 1920s levee and drainage project that added 90,653-ha of catchment area to the inflow of Lake Chicot also increased agricultural acreage from 10% to 80% of the lake's watershed. This resulted in a substantial increase in turbidity in the lake (from 40 to 400 NTU), negatively affecting the sportfish populations, especially the largemouth bass. In the late 1980s, the Army Corps of...
