Overview
Background
Partners
Who To Contact
Development Team

South Florida Water Management District has received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking (EMPACT) for a pilot project to deliver time-relevant Everglades’s information to the public. The district spans sixteen counties with a total population of about six million residents. The geographic area covered in approximately 17,930 square miles and includes vast areas of agricultural lands, water conservation areas, and areas of enormous urban growth and development. The agency has work in progress to restore and manage ecosystems from the Kissimmee River to the Florida Bay including the Everglades.

Through the Everglades Forever Act, the agency was mandated with the task of restoring the biotic integrity of the Everglades ecosystem by improving the water quality and water quantity to this area. There is growing concern in the regulatory, scientific, and environmental communities that the biotic integrity of the remaining Everglades is endangered. This concern stems from undesirable changes in water quality, flora, and fauna in the portions of the Everglades Protection Area (EPA) over the last several decades (e.g. establishment of pronounces nutrient gradients, replacement of large areas of sawgrass by cattail, decline in wading bird populations and species, and shifts in periphyton and macroinvertebrate communities). These changes have been attributed to the disruption of the system’s natural hydroperiod and eutrophication that has resulted from nutrient-rich runoff entering the EPA from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). Phosphorous has been identified as the nutrient most responsible for eutrophication of the EPA. The project of restoring the Everglades is a 7.8 billion dollar endeavor, spanning more than 20 years, that directly impacts all the taxpayers of South Florida who, via their tax dollars, will help subsidize the project, along with Federal contributions. Therefore, it is imperative that South Floridians, and actually all taxpayers, have direct access to the latest environmental information collected by the District regarding the changing state of health of the Everglades ecosystem over time.

The District is mandated by the State to collect information, including meteorological, water quality, hydro geological, and flora/fauna species distribution data. This information is stored in the District’s environmental database, an Oracle database system, which is secured behind a computer firewall. General public access to the main database is available but is limited to a partial, read-only copy, updated monthly.

This District’s corporate environmental database is the source of historical and up-to-date data for the 16-county south Florida region. Input information for key ecosystem health indicators is collected by the District via radio frequency microwave, strip chart recorders, water samplers, field biologists, and information electronically gathered at remote sensor locations. The information collected is quality assured and then stored in the main environmental database. Over 100 water quality and hydrologic parameters are monitored on either a weekly, biweekly, monthly or quarterly basis at various locations throughout the Everglades ecosystem.

The District’s environmental database has become an important reference for hydrologic and water quality investigations in south Florida. The database is a result of cooperative programs with agencies such as the United States Geological Survey, Everglades National Park, the Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other local government agencies. The database maintains information of over 60,000 station-years of data, collected at over 6,000 stations within the District.

The kinds of Everglades biotic health data that is stored in this database and can be made available to the general public via the Living Everglades website and an information digest format that features charts and maps include the following: Phosphorus and other nutrient levels, mercury levels, high and low water extremes, pesticides and other toxic substances, fish, amphibian, reptile, wading bird, and aquatic invertebrate species populations and nesting information including American crocodile, manatee, alligators, wood storks, Cape Sable seaside sparrow, spotted sea trout, pink shrimp, Everglades deer, salinity levels, plant spatial data (mangroves, tree island hammocks, peat-form communities (sloughs and tall saw grass), sea grass, cat-tails, hydroperiod information-inundation patterns, seasonal and inter-annual variability, duration of uninterrupted flooding, duration of dry conditions, number of dry events, wet season water level reversals, etc. These performance measure areas were derived from recommendations made in the Southern Everglades Restoration Alliance Report, Joint Performance Measures (December, 1998).

SFWMD website links: