The Mississippi Delta Headwaters Project (MDHP) was authorized in 1984 to provide a means for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service, to work cooperatively and demonstrate various methods to reduce flooding and major sediment and erosion problems in areas of the Yazoo Basin in northwest Mississippi. Technical assistance was obtained by joint agency effort from the U. S. Department of Agriculture Sedimentation Laboratory at Oxford, Mississippi, the United States Geological Survey and the Engineer Research Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The original six authorized watersheds were Hotophia Creek, Batupan Bogue, Hickahala Creek, Black Creek, Otoucalofa Creek, and Long Creek. Subsequent authorizations added 10 other watersheds to the DEC project: Burney Branch, Sherman Creek, Town Creek (Charleston), Toby Tubby Creek, Abiaca Creek, Coldwater River, Hurricane-Wolf Creeks, Cane-Mussacuna Creeks, Pelucia Creek, and Yalobusha River.  The watersheds range in size from 220 acres to 423,000 acres and total 1,887,000 acres or approximately 2,950 square miles.

The widespread problems and damages in the watersheds are of sufficient magnitude and complexity that a comprehensive watershed approach is required. 

There are a number of major structural features utilized in the MDHP to achieve the reduction of flooding, sediment and erosion.

These features include riser pipe grade control structures, low and high drop grade control structures, floodwater retarding structures and bank stabilization measures.