Mississippi River control systems. Satellite image showing some of the key pieces of river control infrastructure used to manage the Lower Mississippi (thick blue line, centre). By the 1950s, it was clear to the US Army Corps of Engineers that the Mississippi was beginning to shift its course back to the west as the amount of water escaping from the Mississippi and flowing into the Atchafalaya River (one of its distributaries, thin blue line, left) had increased from 10 percent in 1850 to 30 percent in 1950. In 1953, the Army Corps came to the conclusion that the river would change course by 1990 if left unchecked. Since then a series of levees, dams, spillways, dikes, weirs and other pieces of infrastructure have been deployed in an effort to maintain