Water Quality in Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park - Trends and Spatial Characteristics of Selected Constituents

The Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve vegetation mapping project is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). It is a cooperative effort between the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the National Park Service’s (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory Program (VMI). The goal of this project is to produce a spatially and thematically accurate vegetation map of Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve prior to the completion of restoration efforts associated with CERP. This spatial product will serve as a record of baseline vegetation conditions for the purpose of: (1) documenting changes to the spatial extent, pattern, and proportion of plant communities within these two federally-managed units as they respond to hydrologic modifications resulting from the implementation of the CERP; and (2) providing vegetation and land-cover information to NPS park managers and scientists for use in park management, resource management, research, and monitoring. This mapping project covers an area of approximately 7,400 square kilometers (1.84 million acres [ac]) and consists of seven mapping regions: four regions in Everglades National Park, Regions 1–4, and three in Big Cypress National Preserve, Regions 5–7. The report focuses on the mapping effort associated with the Northwest Coastal Everglades (NWCE), Region 4 , in Everglades National Park. The NWCE encompasses a total area of 1,278 square kilometers (493.7 square miles [sq mi], or 315,955 ac) and is geographically located to the south of Big Cypress National Preserve, west of Shark River Slough (Region 1), and north of the Southwest Coastal Everglades (Region 3). Photo-interpretation was performed by superimposing a 50 × 50-meter (164 × 164-feet [ft] or 0.25 hectare [0.61 ac]) grid cell vector matrix over stereoscopic, 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) spatial resolution, color-infrared aerial imagery on a digital photogrammetric workstation. Photo-interpreters identified the dominant community in each cell by applying majority-rule algorithms, recognizing community-specific spectral signatures, and referencing an extensive ground-truth database. The dominant vegetation community within each grid cell was classified using a hierarchical classification system developed specifically for this project. Additionally, photo-interpreters categorized the absolute cover of cattail (Typha sp.) and any invasive species detected as either: Sparse (10–49%), Dominant (50–89%), or Monotypic (90–100%). A total of 178 thematic classes were used to map the NWCE. The most common vegetation classes are Mixed Mangrove Forest-Mixed and Transitional Bayhead Shrubland. These two communities accounted for about 10%, each, of the mapping area. Other notable classes include Short Sawgrass Marsh-Dense (8.1% of the map area), Mixed Graminoid Freshwater Marsh (4.7% of the map area), and Black Mangrove Forest (4.5% of the map area). The NWCE vegetation map has a thematic class accuracy of 88.4% with a lower 90th Percentile Confidence Interval of 84.5%.

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Water Quality and Wet Season Diatom Assemblage Characteristics from the Tamiami Trail Pilot Swales Sites (Everglades National Park, Florida, USA)

Phytotaxa ◽

10.11646/phytotaxa.127.1.16 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 127 (1) ◽

pp. 163 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

ANDREW J. BRAMBURGER ◽

JAY W. MUNYON ◽

EVELYN E. GAISER

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

National Park ◽

Everglades National Park ◽

Florida Everglades ◽

Small Scale ◽

Wet Season ◽

Major Barrier ◽

The North ◽

Baseline Information ◽

Water Conveyance

A pivotal component of hydrological restoration of the Florida Everglades is the improvement of water conveyance to Everglades National Park by the degradation of the current network of canals, roadways and levees. The Tamiami Trail (L29) road/canal complex represents a major barrier to natural water flows into the park and a variety of modification options for flow improvement are currently being explored, including the installation of spreader swales immediately downstream of culverts conveying water under Tamiami Trail from the L29 canal into Everglades National Park. In this study, we evaluated water column chemistry and wet-season diatom community structure to provide baseline information for use in future monitoring activities related to the proposed Tamiami Trail modifications. Water chemistry showed pronounced fluctuations in response to precipitation and anthropogenically mediated hydrological events. Differences in water quality variables among sites were dampened during periods of inundation, and became more pronounced during periods of low canal stage, suggesting the importance of small-scale mechanisms related to isolation of habitat patches. Diatom assemblages were unexpectedly speciose (127 taxa in 40 samples) compared to typical Everglades assemblages, and spatially heterogeneous in sites associated with concentric areas of dense vegetation immediately downstream of culverts. We also observed significant compositional dissimilarities among transects, indicating that culvert pool and north transect assemblages were substantially influenced by propagule input from the canal and areas to the north, while south transect sites were compositionally similar to typical sawgrass prairie diatom communities. Central transect sites were compositionally intermediate to their north and south counterparts. We propose that the position and spatial extent of this “transitional assemblage” is a sensitive indicator of subtle environmental change related to Tamiami Trail modifications.

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WATER QUALITY TRENDS AT INFLOWS TO EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association ◽

10.1111/j.1752-1688.1991.tb03113.x ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 59-72 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

William W. Walker

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

National Park ◽

Everglades National Park ◽

Water Quality Trends

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Water Quality of Inflows to the Everglades National Park over Three Decades (1985–2014) Analyzed by Multivariate Statistical Methods

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph15091882 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (9) ◽

pp. 1882 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lei Wan ◽

Xiaohui Fan

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Best Management Practices ◽

National Park ◽

Management Practices ◽

Temporal Trends ◽

Principal Component ◽

South Florida ◽

Point Sources ◽

Everglades National Park ◽

Nitrogen And Phosphorus

The Everglades, a vast subtropical wetland, dominates the landscape of south Florida and is widely recognized as an ecosystem of great ecological importance. Data from seven inflow sites to the Everglades National Park (ENP) were analyzed over three decades (1985–2014) for temporal trends by the STL (integrated seasonal-trend decomposition using LOESS) method. A cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were applied for the evaluation of spatial variation. The results indicate that the water quality change trend is closely associated with rainfall. Increasing rainfall results in increasing flow and thus, decreasing concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus. Based on 10 variables, the seven sampling stations were classified by CA into four distinct clusters: A, B, C, and D. The PCA analysis indicated that total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) are the main pollution factors, especially TN. The results suggest that non-point sources are the main pollution sources and best management practices (BMPs) effectively reduce organic nitrogen. However, TN and TP control is still the focus of future work in this area. Increasing the transfer water quantity can improve the water quality temporarily and planting submersed macrophytes can absorb nitrogen and phosphorus and increase the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration in water, continuously improving the water quality.

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