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A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional flooding.

Formation
Floodplains are formed in two ways: by erosion; and by aggradation. An erosional floodplain is created as a stream cuts deeper into its channel and laterally into its banks. A stream with a steep gradient will tend to downcut faster than it causes lateral erosion, resulting in a deep, narrow channel with little or no floodplain at all. This is the case of entrenched rivers such as the Virgin River in Zion National Park in the U.S. state of Utah and the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in the U.S. state of Arizona. As the stream approaches its base level, lateral erosion increases, creating an extremely broad floodplain, as in the case of the Platte River flowing across the Great Plains of the United States. There, the boundary between river and floodplain is not clear. In unmodified drainage systems where the terrain is fairly flat and rainfall intermittent, a floodplain may take the place of a river entirely. Instead of a defined streambed, there is simply a broad flat area where water flows from time to time.

An aggradational floodplain is created when a stream lays down thick layers of sediment. This happens when the stream's gradient becomes very slight and its velocity decreases, forcing it to drop sediment brought from higher regions nearer its source. Consequently the lower portion of the river valley becomes filled with alluvium. In times of flood, the rush of water in the high regions tears off and carries down a greater quantity of sediment resulting in planation (creation of a flat terrain) as well as aggradation. Thus, a stream such as the Laramie River in the U.S. state of Wyoming, widens its valley by working in meanders from side to side and covers the widened valley with sediment. Glacial drainage may also form an aggrandational floodplain simply by filling up its valley with alluvium.

Aggradational floodplains are more common than erosional ones. Any obstruction across a river's course, such as a band of hard rock, may form a floodplain behind it. Indeed, anything that checks a river's course and causes it to drop its load will tend to form a floodplain. Aggradational floodplains are most commonly found near the mouths of large rivers, such as the Rhine, the Nile, the Ganges and the Mississippi, where there are occasional floods and the river usually carries a large amount of sediment. Natural levees form inside which the river usually flows, gradually raising its bed above the surrounding plain. Occasional breaches during floods cause the overloaded stream to spread in a great lake over the surrounding country, where the silt covers the ground in consequence.

Physical geography
Floodplains generally contain unconsolidated sediments, often extending below the bed of the stream. These are accumulations of sand, gravel, loam, silt, and/or clay, and are often important aquifers, the water being drawn from them being pre-filtered compared to the water in the stream.

Geologically ancient floodplains are often represented in the landscape by stream terraces. These are old floodplains that remain relatively high above the present floodplain and indicate former courses of a stream.

Sections of the Missouri River floodplain taken by the United States geological survey show a great variety of material of varying coarseness, the stream bed being scoured at one place, and filled at another by currents and floods of varying swiftness, so that sometimes the deposits are of coarse gravel, sometimes of fine sand or of fine silt, and it is probable that any section of such an alluvial plain would show deposits of a similar character.

The floodplain during its formation is marked by meandering or anastomosing streams, ox-bow lakes and bayous, marshes or stagnant pools, and is occasionally completely covered with water. When the drainage system has ceased to act or is entirely diverted for any reason, the floodplain may become a level area of great fertility, similar in appearance to the floor of an old lake. The floodplain differs, however, because it is not altogether flat. It has a gentle slope down-stream, and often, for a distance, from the side towards the center.

Ecology
Floodplains can support particularly rich ecosystems, both in quantity and diversity. These are termed riparian zones or systems. A floodplain can contain 100 or even 1000 times as many species as a river. Wetting of the floodplain soil releases an immediate surge of nutrients: those left over from the last flood, and those that result from the rapid decomposition of organic matter that has accumulated since then. Microscopic organisms thrive and larger species enter a rapid breeding cycle. Opportunistic feeders (particularly birds) move in to take advantage. The production of nutrients peaks and falls away quickly; however the surge of new growth endures for some time. This makes floodplains particularly valuable for agriculture.

Markedly different species grow in floodplains than grow outside of floodplains. For instance, riparian trees (that grow in floodplains) tend to be very tolerant of root disturbance and tend to be very quick-growing, compared to non-riparian trees.

Interaction with society
Historically, many towns, homes and other buildings have been built on floodplains where they are highly susceptible to flooding, for several reasons:
 * This is where water is most available
 * Floodplain land is usually the most fertile for farming
 * Rivers represent cheap sources of transportation, and are often where railroads are located
 * The flatter land is easier to develop than hill land

The extent of floodplain inundation depends in part on the flood magnitude, defined by the return period. In the USA the National Flood Insurance Program regulates development in mapped floodplains based on the 100-year flood. As shown on official Flood Insurance Rate Maps, a typical floodplain is divided into a floodway, which includes the stream's channel and any adjacent areas that must be kept free of encroachments that might block flood flows, and other Special Flood Hazard Areas that are subject to innundation by the 100-year flood. In order for flood-prone property to qualify for government-subsidized insurance, a local community must adopt an ordinance that protects the floodway and requires that new structures built in Special Flood Hazard Areas be elevated at least two feet above the level of the 100-year flood. The U.S. government also sponsors flood hazard mitigation efforts to reduce flood impacts. The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) is one funding source for mitigation projects. A number of whole towns such as English, Indiana, have been completely relocated to remove them from the floodplain. Other smaller-scale mitigation efforts include acquiring and demolishing flood-prone buildings or flood-proofing them.

In some tropical floodplain areas, annual flooding events are a natural part of the local ecology and rural economy.

The "Whiskey Treaties"
In 1832, United States commissioners concluded the Treaty of Tippecanoe that reserved 22 sections of land in Marshall and Fulton counties in Indiana to the bands of four Potawatomi chiefs, one of whom, Menominee, apparently did not sign the treaty. In the Treaty of Yellow River in 1836, the other three chiefs ceded their lands to the United States in return for a cash payment from which was deducted claims made against the Potawatomi by white settlers. Again, Menominee refused to sign and claimed that the agreement of the other chiefs was secured by making them drunk.



Linda Nancy Andrew (August 17, 1947 - November 29, 1998), was the English-language translator of Japanese author Ryū Murakami's highly-acclaimed novel, Almost Transparent Blue, which won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Andrew was the only child of Dr. Warren Andrew (1910 - 1982), who later chaired the Department of Anatomy at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and Nancy Valerie Miellmier Andrew (1914 - 1993), later a secretary with the Indiana State Anatomical Board.

Her interest in Japanese language and culture was kindled when she traveled to Japan with her parents just before her thirteenth birthday in 1960. Graduating from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in 1965, she studied East Asian languages at Indiana University in Bloomington and Waseda University in Tokyo.

After receiving an honors degree from Indiana in 1969, she began graduate study at the Harvard University, where her faculty adviser was Edwin O. Reischauer, former United States Ambassador to Japan, and where she was an editor of Stone Lion Review, published by the East Asian Graduate Students Colloquium.

While doing research for her doctoral dissertation on the feminist movement in Japan, Andrew abandoned her academic studies to work as a translator for NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Her translation of Murakami's surrealistic novel of post-war life in Japan was published in 1977.

Early life and civil rights work
Born in Washington, DC, Shimkin moved with his family in 1960 to Urbana, Illinois, where his parents, anthropologists Demitri B. Shimkin (1916-1992) and Edith Manning Shimkin (1912-1984), had joined the faculty of the University of Illinois. He graduated from Urbana High School in 1962, then attended the University of Michigan before volunteering in 1965 to work for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As a civil rights worker in Mississippi, Shimkin was among 140 demonstrators arrested at Natchez on October 2, 1965, and detained three days at Parchman State Prison Farm, where he and others were kept naked in cold cells with no bedding.

Volunteer service in Vietnam and the Ba Chúc story
Returning to his studies, Shimkin graduated with high distinction in government from Indiana University (Bloomington) in 1969, then became a community development worker with International Voluntary Services (IVS) in Laos and South Vietnam. While with IVS in Vietnam, Shimkin and another volunteer, Ronald Moreau, became sources for a New York Times story by Gloria Emerson published in January 1971 about the forced use of Vietnamese civilians by South Vietnamese officers and their American advisers to clear land mines near the village of Ba Chúc on the Cambodian border. As Moreau later described the situation, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers planted mines on hillsides near the village to protect their upland positions and successfully resisted combined American and South Vietnamese air and ground attacks. Believing that the villagers knew where the communist forces had placed the mines and booby traps, the American and South Vietnamese officers forced the Ba Chúc villagers at gunpoint to use hand tools to locate and remove the mines, a task that resulted in several deaths and serious injuries among the villagers when the explosives detonated. There were also casualties from mortar attacks by the communists who wanted to disrupt the operation.

After contacting Emerson, Shimkin and Moreau went with her to interview the villagers. According to Moreau, Emerson's story "had an immediate impact," causing the Pentagon to order an immediate halt to the mine-clearing operation. The story also brought a halt to Shimkin's and Moreau's service with IVS, which fired them for speaking to the press without permission. According to Moreau, Emerson intervened again, getting Shimkin a job as a stringer with Newsweek and Moreau one with the Washington Post.

Investigation of Operation Speedy Express
While working for Newsweek, Shimkin read documents released by the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Reviewing the MACV documents about Operation Speedy Express, conducted in the Mekong Delta from December 1968 through May 1969, Shimkin noticed a large disparity between the American clains of 10, 899 enemy dead and the reported capture of only 748 enemy weapons. Shimkin's conclusion, bas on further documentary research and on interviews with American officials and Vietnamese witnesses, was that a large number of the reported dead were Vietnamese noncombatants whose deaths, whether accidental or deliberate, were used to enhance the body count that commanders of the Ninth Infantry Divison considered the measure of the operation's success.

Shimkin and his boss, Newsweek's Saigon bureau chief Kevin P. Buckley, produced a 4,700-word story that specifically alleged "that thousands of Vietnamese civilians have been killed deliberately by U.S. forces." Paired back to 1,800 words by Newsweek editors who feared that the allegations would be seen as an attack on the administration of President Richard M. Nixon, the story was published in June 1972 under the title "Pacification's Deadly Price," but it attracted little attention. A few weeks later, Shimkin was killed.

Death
On July 12, 1972, Shimkin and another reporter, Charles "Chad" Huntley, became lost in Quảng Trị Province. Leaving behind their Jeep, they walked into a hand grenade attack by North Vietnamese soldiers. Fluent in Vietnamese, Shimkin attempted to communicate with the attackers, but was killed. Huntley, a veteran of the U.S. Special Forces, was only slightly wounded and later attributed his survival and escape to his military training. Shimkin's body was not recovered and he was considered "missing in action" for many years. Former War correspondent Zalin Grant thought he had Shimkin's grave "fairly well pinpointed" in 2002, but Shimkin's grave still has not been located.

Personal interests
According to information from Shimkin's IVS application, he liked the novels of William Faulkner and Theodore Dreiser as well as reading political science and American history. At the time of his death he had been accepted for graduate study at Princeton University and hoped to write the "definitive history" of the Vietnam War. Shimkin's interest in military history led him to donate books on the subject to the Indiana University Library.

External link

 * Find A Grave entry for Alexander Shimkin.

Notes and references
Category: 1944 births Category: 1972 deaths Category: People from Urbana, Illinois Category: African Americans' rights activists Category: Indiana University alumni Category: Newsweek people Category: Journalists killed while covering the Vietnam War

=Northern Student Movement=

The Northern Student Movement (NSM)was an American civil rights organization founded at Yale University in 1961 by Peter J. Countryman (1942-1992).

Countryman began NSM's work by collecting books for a predominently African American college and raising funds for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He then turned to organizing tutoring programs for inner city youth in northeastern cities. By 1963, NSM was reported to be helping as many as 3,500 children using 2,200 student volunteers from 50 colleges and universities. ref Down-to-Earth Idealism," Time, May 17, 1963. /ref NSM also encouraged direct-action protests, sending volunteers to sit-ins in the South and organizing rent strikes in the North. ref Nina Mjagkij (ed.), Organizing Black America: An Encyclopedia of African American Associations, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2001, p. 462. ISBN 0815323093 /ref

Notes and references
reflist

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Category:Organizations established in 1961 Category:African Americans' rights organizations Category:African American history Category:History of African-American civil rights Category:Student political organizations in the United States Category:Youth empowerment organizations

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