Great Rivers Partnership - UMR-Upper Mississippi River

The Upper Mississippi River Program

Gift of the Glaciers

About 12,000 years ago, sheets of continental ice, more than a mile thick, covered much of the north-central United States and Canada. As they melted, vast lakes formed and glacial runoff created powerful rivers. These waterways etched the face of the land and carved valleys, which are today occupied by the Upper Mississippi River and its tributaries. The present-day network of lakes, streams and wetland in much of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri are the direct result of this glacial reworking of the landscape.

The Mississippi River and its tributaries provide a vital migration corridor for 60 percent of all bird species in North America. The remarkable diversity of plants, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles and mammals depending on the freshwater habitats found there includes a fourth of the continent’s fish species.

Equally important, the same region is home to more than 30 million people, half of whom rely on the Mississippi River and tributaries as sources of drinking water. Sixty-six percent of the region’s land is used to produce agricultural goods, and the Mississippi and Illinois rivers are at the heart of an engineered navigation system by which 50 percent of U.S. corn and soybeans are transported, some eventually reaching global markets. The system also provides river barges loaded with key imports, such as coal, oil and cement, access to the U.S. heartland.

Though the Upper Mississippi’s basin has been greatly altered by human activities, the National Research Council, a nonprofit agency that provides scientific advice to the federal government, has called attention to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers as two floodplain rivers in the United States that could, with proper management and restoration, be restored to full health.

The Conservancy's UMR Program

The Nature Conservancy’s Upper Mississippi River Program is working to restore and conserve the diversity of life within the UMR region. It is a collaborative effort between state Conservancy programs in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin — the five states bordering the Mississippi upstream from its confluence with the Ohio River. All Upper Mississippi tributaries, with the exception of the Missouri River, a vast network in its own right, are included in the scope of the program. As a part of the inland waterway transportation system, the Illinois River is a key component of the UMR program. Upland areas drained by UMR tributaries also fall within the program’s purview.

Collaborating with Conservancy chapters and many other partners in the five states, the UMR program works locally at priority conservation sites that shelter significant plant and animal life. These sites were selected with the aim of furthering the Conservancy’s goal of conserving each habitat type and species occurring within the UMR region.

The UMR program gives the Conservancy a way to address ecological issues that transcend state borders. It allows scientists and the Conservancy to develop and implement multi-state conservation strategies and to build broader partnerships to support those strategies. And, when a conservation challenge is successfully confronted at one location, the UMR program provides a means for replicating such successes at other locales within the region.

In addition, the work in the UMR basin, which is part of the Conservancy’s Great Rivers Partnership, will benefit other project areas that are priorities for the Conservancy. The efforts of the UMR program are expected to contribute to the achievement of conservation objectives in two downstream ecoregions: the Lower Mississippi River alluvial plain and the northern Gulf of Mexico.

UMR, Islands on the Mississippi River near Marquette, Iowa

UMR Program

Priority Sites