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<br />000527
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<br />Water Resources Development
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<br />tend to produce large concentrations of flood flow in the lower river
<br />providing storms are of a general nature over the entire area.
<br />The. season of major floods on the Kansas river proper usually oc-
<br />curs in the period May 15 tAl July 15, inclusive. Excessive local
<br />floods, however, have occurred in other months of the year.
<br />At the present, 27 gaging stations are being maintained to secure
<br />stream-flow data on the main stem and tributaries in Kansas. (See
<br />Table 1.)
<br />
<br />EARLY FLOODS
<br />
<br />Several of the earliest floods are matters of legend and tradition
<br />rather than of actual historical record. One of the early floods in
<br />the Kansas Basin occurred in 1785. In 1826 another great flood
<br />occurred throughout the entire middle Mississippi and Missouri
<br />river basins. The flood of 1844 was probably the maximum flood
<br />known in the valley with stages at Topeka reported to be approxi-
<br />mately two feet higher than the flood of 1903. Other floods occurred
<br />in 1845, 1851, 1858, 1870, 1881 and 1886.
<br />
<br />RECENT FLOODS
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<br />probably the most devastating flood of record occurred in May
<br />and June of 1903, exceeded only by the flood of 1844. Approxi-
<br />mately 375,000 acres were overflowed and damages were exceedingly
<br />heavy. The overflows of 1902, 1904, 1908, 1915, 1923, 1927, 1935,
<br />1941 and 1943 floods were general over the central and eastern parts
<br />of the basin. The 1904 flood approached the 1903 flood in severity
<br />on the Smoky Hill and Kansas rivers. Damages from the 1908 flood
<br />were exceedingly heavy on the lower Kansas river from Topeka to
<br />Kansas City, The 1915 and 1935 floods were very severe on the
<br />Republican, but reduced in magnitude as they moved downstream.
<br />At Cambridge, Nebraska, the estimated instantaneous discharge for
<br />the 1935 flood was 280,000 cubic feet per second, while at Junction
<br />City, where it enters the Kansas river, the discharge was 168,000
<br />cubic feet per second. During the past eighteen years the direct
<br />tangible flood losses in the Kansas basin have amounted to approx-
<br />imately $27,500,000.
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<br />WATER PROBLEMS OF THE BASIN
<br />
<br />The water problems of the Kansas river basin are principally. the
<br />result of extreme variations in rainfall.and fluctuations in river flow.
<br />The problem of flood conti-ol is common to practically all parts of
<br />the basin. In the western part of the state, where the rainfall is less,
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