The Lower Mississippi River Basin received an average score of D+ in the report card for the six goals. The basin had high marks for recreation from hunting and fishing license sales and relatively good streamside habitat. The low overall score is driven by poor condition of the communities of fish and organisms living in the river and stream bottoms, substantially lower median income, lock delays approaching the worst-performing year, poor infrastructure condition and maintenance, an increase in the number of people moving into the floodplain relative to overall population change, poor levee condition, low numbers of communities with building elevation requirements, and nearly 5 percent of water supply systems reporting treatment violations.

The Lower Mississippi River receives all of the water that flows down from the other basins as well as the riverine transportation of imports and exports that make up a large component of the national economy. The poor performance in lock delays and inland infrastructure condition and maintenance paints a challenging picture for future transportation system failures, with potentially devastating national economic consequences. As the bottom of the “funnel,” the basin also feels the effects of flooding that occur anywhere in the Mississippi River Watershed. The flood control and risk reduction issues that are reported in the scores represent relative risk; however, despite the low scores, the flood control system performed exceedingly well during the record floods of 2011 as no lives were lost and there was minimal property damages.

The coastal wetlands in the Lower Mississippi River continue to decline although increasing efforts to slow the loss–including water diversions and beneficial use of materials dredged from the shipping channel to restore wetlands–are having a positive impact. Coastal waters in the Gulf of Mexico are threatened by a large hypoxic zone that depletes oxygen from the water that forms annually as the result of excess nutrient runoff from the river.