Atlas Obscura: in 1943, the Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the largest scale model ever built. They modeled all 1.25 million square miles of the Mississippi River and surrounding areas on more than 200 acres with the sole purpose of understanding how it would flood and which techniques worked best and how they affected things up/down river. Years earlier before erecting this model, they had amassed several failed large scale prevention/levee projects based on paper/pencil projections.
Hydrostatic physical models are still being used today, but none match the scale of this one. Initial construction was done with labor from captured Nazis during and after WWII. Today, this model lies in abandoned disrepair.
More info & photos here:
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/americas-last-top-model/
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