Hydrologic measurements and water quality in ENR, WCA2 and WCA3 (OFR 00-168 appendixes)

At present there are few reliable estimates of hydrologic fluxes between groundwater and surface water in the Everglades. This gap in hydrological investigations not only leaves the water budget of the Everglades uncertain, it also hampers progress in understanding the processes that determine mobility and transformation of contaminants, such as mercury, sulfate and nutrients. The objective of this project is to quantify hydrologic exchange fluxes between groundwater and surface water and its effects on transport of contaminants in the Everglades. The research furthermore relates surface water and ground water interactions to past, present, and proposed management of surface-water levels and flows in the Everglades. The principal research sites are the Everglades Nutrient Removal Project (ENR), Water Conservation Area 2A (WCA-2A), and the freshwater wetlands of Everglades National Park. Results are being used to quantify ground-water exchange with surface flow, and to quantify the enhancement of chemical transformations of contaminants during transport across the interface between surface water and ground water. The datasets available in the appendixes of the OFR provide information on site locations and measurements in the Everglades Nutrient Removal (ENR) area and Water Conservation Area (WCA) 2A.

For restoration of the Everglades to succeed there must be comprehensive knowledge about physical, chemical, and biological processes throughout the system. A key measure of success in the Everglades is the improvement or protection of water quality under changing hydrologic conditions. Although there is a basic understanding of how interactions between groundwater and surface water will affect water budgets under restoration, there is only a rudimentary understanding of how interactions between groundwater and surface water will affect water quality. Only field-oriented research and modeling can determine whether interactions between groundwater and surface water are currently storing pollutants in groundwater, how long those pollutants are likely to be stored in the aquifer, and under what changing management conditions associated with restoration will those pollutants be returned into the surface water system.