Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

The Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center publishes water-information reports on many topics and in many formats. From this page, you can locate, view, download, or order scientific and technical articles and reports as well as general interest publications such as booklets, fact sheets, pamphlets, and posters resulting from the research performed by our scientists and partners.

Filter Total Items: 463

Is a salinity monitoring network "Worth its salt"?

Saltwater intrusion threatens the water supplies of many coastal communities. Management of these water supplies requires well-designed and properly maintained and operated salinity monitoring networks. Long-standing deficiencies identified in a salinity monitoring network in southwest Florida during a 2013 study (Prinos, 2013) help to illustrate the types of problems that can occur in aging and p
Authors
Scott T. Prinos

Integrating seismic-reflection and sequence-stratigraphic methods to characterize the hydrogeology of the Floridan aquifer system in southeast Florida

The Floridan aquifer system (FAS) is receiving increased attention as a result of regulatory restrictions on water-supply withdrawals and treated wastewater management practices. The South Florida Water Management District’s Regional Water Availability Rule, adopted in 2007, restricts urban withdrawals from the shallower Biscayne aquifer to pre-April 2006 levels throughout southeast Florida. Legis
Authors
Kevin J. Cunningham

Potential effects of deepening the St. Johns River navigation channel on saltwater intrusion in the surficial aquifer system, Jacksonville, Florida

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has proposed dredging a 13-mile reach of the St. Johns River navigation channel in Jacksonville, Florida, deepening it to depths between 50 and 54 feet below North American Vertical Datum of 1988. The dredging operation will remove about 10 feet of sediments from the surficial aquifer system, including limestone in some locations. The limestone unit, which
Authors
Jason C. Bellino, Rick M. Spechler

A comparison of models for estimating potential evapotranspiration for Florida land cover types

We analyzed observed daily evapotranspiration (DET) at 18 sites having measured DET and ancillary climate data and then used these data to compare the performance of three common methods for estimating potential evapotranspiration (PET): the Turc method (Tc), the Priestley-Taylor method (PT) and the Penman-Monteith method (PM). The sites were distributed throughout the State of Florida and represe
Authors
Ellen M. Douglas, Jennifer M. Jacobs, David M. Sumner, Ram L. Ray

Preliminary stratigraphic and hydrogeologic cross sections and seismic profile of the Floridan aquifer system of Broward County, Florida

To help water-resource managers evaluate the Floridan aquifer system (FAS) as an alternative water supply, the U.S. Geological Survey initiated a study, in cooperation with the Broward County Environmental Protection and Growth Management Department, to refine the hydrogeologic framework of the FAS in the eastern part of Broward County. This report presents three preliminary cross sections illustr
Authors
Ronald S. Reese, Kevin J. Cunningham

Evaluation of groundwater quality and selected hydrologic conditions in the South Coast aquifer, Santa Isabel area, Puerto Rico, 2008–09

The source of drinking water in the Santa Isabel and Coamo areas of Puerto Rico (Molina and Gómez-Gómez, 2008) is the South Coast aquifer (hereafter referred to as the aquifer), which supplies about 30,700 cubic meters per day (m³/d) to Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) public-supply wells. In addition, approximately 45 wells provide an estimated 33,700 m³/d of groundwater to irriga
Authors
José M. Rodríguez

Saltwater intrusion in the surficial aquifer system of the Big Cypress Basin, southwest Florida, and a proposed plan for improved salinity monitoring

The installation of drainage canals, poorly cased wells, and water-supply withdrawals have led to saltwater intrusion in the primary water-use aquifers in southwest Florida. Increasing population and water use have exacerbated this problem. Installation of water-control structures, well-plugging projects, and regulation of water use have slowed saltwater intrusion, but the chloride concentration o
Authors
Scott T. Prinos

Use of general purpose graphics processing units with MODFLOW

To evaluate the use of general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs) to improve the performance of MODFLOW, an unstructured preconditioned conjugate gradient (UPCG) solver has been developed. The UPCG solver uses a compressed sparse row storage scheme and includes Jacobi, zero fill-in incomplete, and modified-incomplete lower-upper (LU) factorization, and generalized least-squares polynomial
Authors
Joseph D. Hughes, Jeremy T. White

Assessing factors affecting the thermal properties of a passive thermal refuge using three-dimensional hydrodynamic flow and transport modeling

Everglades restoration activities may cause changes to temperature and salinity stratification at the Port of the Islands (POI) marina, which could affect its suitability as a cold weather refuge for manatees. To better understand how the Picayune Strand Restoration Project (PSRP) may alter this important resource in Collier County in southwestern Florida, the USGS has developed a three-dimensiona
Authors
Jeremy D. Decker, Eric D. Swain, Bradley Stith, Catherine A. Langtimm

Groundwater flow cycling between a submarine spring and an inland fresh water spring

Spring Creek Springs and Wakulla Springs are large first magnitude springs that derive water from the Upper Floridan Aquifer. The submarine Spring Creek Springs are located in a marine estuary and Wakulla Springs are located 18 km inland. Wakulla Springs has had a consistent increase in flow from the 1930s to the present. This increase is probably due to the rising sea level, which puts additional
Authors
J. Hal Davis, Richard Verdi

Harmonizing multiple methods for reconstructing historical potential and reference evapotranspiration

Potential evapotranspiration (PET) and reference evapotranspiration (RET) data are usually critical components of hydrologic analysis. Many different equations are available to estimate PET and RET. Most of these equations, such as the Priestley-Taylor and Penman- Monteith methods, rely on detailed meteorological data collected at ground-based weather stations. Few weather stations collect enough
Authors
Getachew Belaineh, David Sumner, Edward Carter, David Clapp

Stochastic analyses to identify wellfield withdrawal effects on surface-water and groundwater in Miami-Dade County, Florida

Several stochastic analyses were conducted in Miami-Dade County, Florida, to evaluate the effects of wellfield withdrawal on aquifer water levels, canal stage, and canal flow. Multiyear data for withdrawals at four water-supply wellfields, water levels at the S-121 canal control structure and groundwater head at a nearby monitoring well were used to determine the interrelation between wellfield wi
Authors
Eric Swain