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Ground-water conditions in southern Florida

Ground-water conditions in southern Florida

This website was originally designed as a part of a ground-water network analysis project to select the most-representative wells in the South Florida area. Such wells were considered to be among the most efficient sites to instrument with telemetry. With this website, the goal is to provide water managers with daily updates on ground-water conditions in southern Florida. Many of the analytical tools used to select the representative monitoring wells are also employed to analyze data for this website. The site incorporates image maps showing current conditions for stations in selected geographical areas and aquifers, and statistical comparison plots for each station. The maps can also be used to navigate the site to the pages specific to the stations displayed.

Current Water-level Conditions in South Florida

The stations presented in these web pages are continuously monitored by on-site equipment. The data collected are held on-site until transferred by satellite to USGS computers. These data transfers are scheduled every 4 hours. Considering transfer and analysis time, the data on this page are expected to be current to the date and may be updated more frequently as conditions require. The data presented are provisional, as they are retrieved directly from the USGS database without final quality assurance/quality control review.

For more information on the methods used and the data analyzed, the project report is available on this website. A PDF version of the report (download 6.3 MB) is also available.

URL: http://www.sflorida.er.usgs.gov/ddn_data/index.html

Current Water-level Conditions in South Florida - The data presented in the image maps are the 7-day averages of the daily values (daily maximum water level for ground water in South Florida) as compared to the historical (the last 25 years, as avilable) data from each station. As discussed above, the historical data have been analyzed to determine the existence and extent of any long-term trends. Long-term trends are mathematically removed from the data in order to present current data in a historical context without the skewing caused by such trends.

URL: http://www.sflorida.er.usgs.gov/ddn_data/index_ndt.html

Current Water-level Conditions in South Florida - The data presented in the image maps are the 7-day averages of the daily values (daily maximum water level for ground water in South Florida) as compared to the historical (the last 25 years, as avilable) data from each station. In these pages, long-term trends are not considered. Plots of current data against the distribution of historical data may therefore show current water levels abnormally low during a period of good water supply or abnormally high during a drought in cases where there is a long-term downward or upward trend in water levels.

End-of-Month Water-level Conditions in South Florida

Prior to September 2000, the FISC-WRS produced an End-of-Month (EOM) report summarizing water-level information throughout South Florida. The majority of these wells were not monitored in real-time via satellite telemetry, so this was the primary method of disseminating the provisional data from these sites to regional water managers. Because of the widespread availability of the World Wide Web (WWW), this site has replaced the EOM report.

The stations presented in these WWW pages are continuously monitored by on-site equipment. The data collected are held on-site until downloaded by a USGS technician during a monthly site visit. These visits are scheduled every 4-8 weeks, based on operational requirements, and so the data on this page are only generally expected to be current up to the second month before the current month. In any case, the data presented are provisional, as they are retrieved directly from the USGS database without final quality assurance/quality control review.

URL: http://www.sflorida.er.usgs.gov/edl_data/index.html

Water-level Conditions for the End of <Month> in South Florida - As with the real-time pages, the historical data (last 25 years, as available) from each well has been analyzed to determine if there is a long-term trend in the data. At sites where there has been a long-term change in water levels, the long-term trend is mathematically removed from the data in order to present current data in a historical context without the skewing caused by a long-term trend.

URL: http://www.sflorida.er.usgs.gov/edl_data/index_ndt.html

Water-level Conditions for the End of <Month> in South Florida - The data presented in the image maps are the 7-day averages of the daily values (daily maximum water level for ground water in South Florida) as compared to the historical (the last 25 years, as avilable) data from each station. In these pages, long-term trends are not considered. Plots of current data against the distribution of historical data may therefore show current water levels abnormally low during a period of good water supply or abnormally high during a drought in cases where there is a long-term downward or upward trend in water levels.

Manual Water-Level Measurements in South Florida

URL: http://www.sflorida.er.usgs.gov/edl_data/index_qw.html

With the development of websites to display data from real-time and non-real-time, continuously-monitored ground-water stations, it was decided that the FISC-WRS should also produce a site displaying data from periodically-measured ground-water sites. By this time NWISWeb was able to provide periodic ground-water levels as well as water quality parameters, neither are presented with a historical analysis of the data. This site is intended to fill the gap between the existing analytical sites provided by FISC-WRS and the historical measurements data avilable through NWISWeb.

The stations presented in these WWW pages are periodically (generally monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually) visited for the purpose of collecting manual tapedown (measurement of water level) or chloride concentration data. In some cases, these stations are also continuously monitored for ground-water elevation at the sites. This will be noted on the station page and such sites should also be available on the real-time and non-real-time pages. For the majority of the remaining sites, the data on this page are only generally expected to be current up to the second month before the current month. Also, such sites will include two-year duration plots of the most recent data compared to the historical average water level calculated for the site. In any case, the data presented are provisional, as they are retrieved directly from the USGS database without final quality assurance/quality control review.