Southwest Florida Coastal and Wetlands Systems Monitoring

The objective of this project is to describe the salinity patterns in relation to freshwater inflows to the estuaries and tidal exchange with the Gulf of Mexico, to provide support for the USGS Tides and Inflows in the Mangroves of the Everglades model (TIME) and to programs like the Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (LTER). This study will quantify water discharge, describe hydrodynamic characteristics of estuarine rivers of southwest Everglades National Park, and provide necessary information for the development and calibration of the TIME hydrodynamic model.

Hydrologic information throughout the Everglades ecosystem is key to the development of restoration strategies and for future evaluation of restoration results. There are significant hydrologic information gaps throughout the Everglades wetlands and estuaries that need to be addressed, particularly along Florida’s southwest coast. Among these gaps are flow, water level, and salinity data. This project, in conjunction with the Everglades National Park’s (ENP) marine monitoring network, will provide water level, salinity, and flow information at key points within the mangrove zone along the southwest coast of ENP. This project will also include a wetland component designed to provide water level, salinity, and "sheetflow" velocity at selected points within the "sloughs" (flow paths) flowing into the estuaries. Hydrodynamic modelers of the Everglades, Florida Bay, southwest coast estuaries, and other adjacent marine systems can use these data to calibrate and verify models describing flow patterns throughout ENP.

This project has taken over the responsibilities of the 1996 USGS program to measure flows and nutrient flux from the Everglades wetlands into the southwest estuaries of Everglades National Park. Nutrient data collection was discontinued in FY 2000.