Environmental Measures
Lake Tohopekaliga in central Florida.
Isolated cypress dome in Green Swamp.
Crooked Lake in central Florida.
The Environmental Measures technical working group consists of scientists from the St. Johns River, South Florida, and Southwest Florida water management districts. It provides primarily groundwater-dominated wetlands and surface waters expertise in support of water supply planning.
Tasks
Tasks include:
- Evaluating the current status of wetlands and surface waters with respect to hydrologic stress in the Central Florida Water Initiative (CFWI) Planning Area.
- Developing tools for quantifying relationships between observed wetland condition and hydrology.
- Applying model output to quantify the assessment relationships developed above.
The three water management districts have conducted field assessments of more than 500 wetlands and lakes within the CFWI Planning Area to determine their current conditions.
Analysis
Analyses being done include:
- Develop statistical relationship between observed hydrologic stress and observed water level variations.
- Develop hydrologic indices for stressed and unstressed wetlands in Plains and Ridge physiographic settings, which predicts the probability of hydrologic stress occurring in wetlands.
- Conduct wetlands risk assessment to determine the probability of future changes in wetland stress occurring based on modeled water level changes.
Resources
- Protecting Florida’s wetlands (a story map)
- Draft Assessment of Effects of Groundwater Withdrawals on Groundwater-Dominated Wetlands in the Central Florida Water Initiative Planning Area, September 2024
Archive
- Assessment of Effects of Groundwater Withdrawals on Groundwater-Dominated Wetlands in the Central Florida Initiative Area, Aug. 24, 2020
- Development of Environmental Measures for Assessing Effects of Water Level Changes on Lakes and Wetlands in the Central Florida Water Initiative (Final Report), November 2013
- Environmental Measures Team fact sheet
- CFCA Wetland Assessment