Abstract presented at the 2002 AGU Spring Meeting.

The Shark-Harney river estuary is located in the southwest region of Everglades National Park and is the principle outflow for the freshwater everglades slough. Periodic tidal inundation, rainfall and overland freshwater flow are the forcing functions on surface soil infiltration and drainage in the adjacent estuary mangrove forest peat. Empirical soil hydraulic conductivity (K) for the mangrove peat soil is needed for hydrologic modeling efforts such as "The Tides and Inflows in the Mangroves of the Everglades" (TIME). South Florida has a bi-seasonal weather pattern of a dry and mild winters and a wet tropical summers. During the drier winter months (November-May), the mangrove peat has a 30-60 cm, unsaturated vadose zone and in the wet summer months (June-October), the peat is totally saturated. This study's purpose is to determine reliable values of soil hydraulic conductivity for mangrove peat under both the unsaturated Kfs and saturated Ksat soil conditions. Rycroft (1975) reported that field measurements are the preferred method of testing hydraulic conductivity of peat. The principle field method used to determining soil hydraulic conductivity Kfs under unsaturated conditions utilized a cylindrical permeameter (Guelph Permeameter) and the auger-hole method was used to determine soil hydraulic conductivity Ksat under saturated soil conditions. The hydraulic conductivity K samples were taken along a 300-meter transect, perpendicular to the south Harney riverbank through a mixed mangrove riparian forest and ending in a freshwater sawgrass prairie. Initial measurements were recorded in May-June 2001. A second year measurement set will be collected in March-April 2002. Hydraulic conductivity K measurements were observed in shallow peat holes (15 cm) at five equally spaced sample sites (60 m) from the river edge. Soil cores were taken at each sampling site to determine soil profile and bulk density.

¹gordon_anderson@usgs.gov, USGS-Biologic Research Division, Florida Caribbean Science Center-Everglades Field Station 40001 SR 9336, Homestead, FL 33034 United States

²Tom_J_Smith@usgs.gov, USGS-Biologic Research Division, Florida Caribbean Science Center. c/o Center for Coastal and Regional Marine Studies 600 Fourth Street, South , St. Petersburg, FL 33701 United States