An aquifer core sample. Water moves through the holes and cracks of limestone formations that are part of the aquifer system.
Groundwater Availability
The Groundwater Availability Team is developing planning-level estimates of groundwater availability. The team’s guiding principal is to identify the sustainable quantities of traditional groundwater sources available for water supply that can be used without causing unacceptable harm to the water resources and associated natural systems.
Team objectives are to:
- Review and understand the water resource conditions within the Central Florida Water Initiative (CFWI) area
- Provide planning-level estimates of groundwater availability within the CFWI area under current and future conditions
Tasks
The team’s scope of work includes:
- To review, understand and identify evaluation methodologies used to develop planning-level estimates of groundwater availability.
- Use the identified evaluation methodologies to determine:
- Locations where current/permitted/planned withdrawals and water management activities are less than groundwater availability under current conditions.
- Locations where current/permitted/planned withdrawals and water management activities are in approximate balance with groundwater availability under current conditions.
- Locations where current/permitted/planned withdrawals appear to exceed groundwater availability under current conditions. For this case, current or permitted withdrawal reductions and other water management activities will be evaluated for reducing, eliminating or managing areas of impact.
- Develop planning-level estimates of groundwater availability
- Maps of predicted hydrologic changes, statistical results, wetland assessment data, land use changes from historical times to present and other information will be used to identify the locations where additional groundwater supplies may be accommodated and planning level estimates of the availability.