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Today, in some low-lying areas of the Delta, hundreds of miles of levees are needed to keep the land from being flooded by the surrounding water. The water surface can be over 20 feet higher than the land surface. As a result of this condition, a levee failure could result in flooding during the summer as well as the winter. At least four levee failures occurred during the summer or early fall -- Webb Tract, June 1950; Andrus-Brannan Island, June 1972; Jones Tract, September-October 1980; and MacDonald Island, August 1982.
The lowest surface elevations map is also available in two sections: the northern half of the Delta and the southern half of the Delta.