Impact of 20th Century Water-Management and Land-Use Practices on the Coastal Hydrology of Southeast Florida

The data are available as Arc/Info coverages from USGS Circular 1275. The Landuse coverages are in Florida State Plane Cordinate System, east zone, units feet, zone 3601, datum NAD27. All other coverages are in UTM Coordinate System, unit meters, zone 17, datum NAD27.

Saltwater intrusion into the surficial aquifer is a direct consequence of water-management practices, concurrent agricultural and urban development, and natural drought conditions. An important part of this synthesis is to link water-management practices (canal-discharge), consumptive water use, water levels within the surficial aquifer system, chloride concentrations, ground-water discharge, and Holocene paleohistory of the Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay. For example, a series of water table maps for specific selected 5-year increments have been developed to spatially identify the areal extent where long-term water levels within the surficial aquifer have declined and to compare these changes with movement of the interface. Such changes are also being compared with changes in coastal outflows from major canals to distinquish between long-term declines caused by regional drainage and a large number of municipal pumping centers. Paleontologic data are being used to prepare maps illustrate temporal changes in salinity within the Biscayne Bay over the last 150 years. Salinity changes within the bay are largely attributed to a decrease in ground-water and surface water discharge.

This is a completed project. The GIS data layers have been updated as of 4/26/2006. The previous layers available from SOFIA have been replaced with the updated layers.