Flood Plains

Flood plains are the areas of land adjacent to rivers that are regularly inundated with water when the river floods. Due to the Monocacy River, which runs through the park, flood plains are an important landscape feature at the battlefield. At the time of the battle floodplains were utilized as farmland and there were few areas of native plant-life along the rivers. Today, there are large forested areas along the rivers that act as a buffer between agricultural fields and waterways. These buffer zones reduce the amount of erosion along river banks and absorb nutrient and sediment runoff from neighboring fields.