EROSION

Erosion is a process of wearing, gnawing, and eating away, as well as a process of forming. It is a process of removal and displacement that can also be one of making. Erosion involves muck, sediment, dirt—the particles being eroded—on the one hand, and the water which moves those sediments and remakes them into new landforms on the other. Erosion transforms the Mississippi River’s channels, which are reshaped, worn down, and built up as currents, floods, and rivulets remove and transfer banks, sandbars, and shorelines. As one part of the processes that deposited agriculturally rich sediment throughout the Mississippi River Valley, erosion determines where people live and plant, but it also carries toxic runoff and pollution downstream. As a hydrological feature and a political one, erosion makes possible human industry and agriculture, even as it is also a consequence of human actions to transform the River Valley into a corridor for capital.