The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) collects, validates, and archives hydro-meteorological data, a key component in the management of the water resources in the area. In recent years, the need to add new stations for data collection have continued to grow with the implementation of new projects and so have the costs of maintaining and operating the District's extensive monitoring network. To address this issue, the SFWMD developed a pilot project to enhance its stage-monitoring network in the Everglades Wetlands area. The SFWMD chose Shark River Slough within the Everglades Wetlands Area for the pilot study.
Taylor Engineering performed the pilot study using the SFWMD's water management model and designed geostatistical methods to enhance the design of stage-monitoring networks for a section of the Everglades Wetlands Area. The study consisted of three components: water depth analysis, inundation duration analysis, and stage gage location analysis.
The water depth analysis methods consisted of the application of statistics and GIS grouping schemes to analyze modeled daily mean water depth data. The inundation duration analysis examined weekly mean water depths to determine the duration of the inundation events. The stage-gage location analysis focused on the establishment of similar hydrologic regions within the study areas.
The pilot study has identified hydrologically similar regions based on classification schemes that reflect regional habitat tolerances to specific hydrological conditions - water depth and inundation duration. These classifications provide concrete criteria on ways to group the water depth and inundation duration data and could apply to larger geographic regions.
The project team looked at two gage location options to identify potential gage sites. The first option was to place one gage per similar hydrologic region. The second option was, in addition to the first option, to monitor the transition areas between similar hydrologic regions. Overlapping the existing stage gage network information on the hydrologically similar regions helped to assess the potential future changes (addition or removal of stage gages) on the existing network.
During 2006, Taylor Engineering applied this methodology to evaluate the entire Everglades Wetlands Area. This second project incorporated the gages from the EDEN (Everglades Depth Estimation Network) into the analysis. The
