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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska

To control flooding, many lakes and reservoirs were built in the 1950s. Almost all of Kansas’s major lakes, in fact, are manmade. The largest is Milford Lake, a 16,000-acre (6,475 ha) reservoir constructed by damming the Republican River to control flooding from the Republican and Kansas rivers. One of Kansas’s few naturally formed lakes is Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas. But although the lake basin itself is natural, manmade dams and canals have been added to control the water levels. These were con- structed to provide wetlands for migratory birds. About 45 percent of all migrating shorebirds in North America pass through these marshy

A flock of Marbled Godwit shorebirds gather together at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge located in Stafford.

waters. As many as 328 different species of birds have been observed here. That number includes several endangered species, such as the pere-

The Arkansas River meanders over the plains north of Wichita.