ATLSS high-resolution topography and hydrology model

The Across Trophic Level System Simulation (ATLSS) Program of the U.S. Geological Survey has produced High-Resolution Hydrology and High-Resolution Topography models to provide high-resolution hydrologic data for the Greater Everglades landscape. Such hydrologic data is essential for describing the effect of hydrology on the important wildlife populations that are being modeled by the ATLSS Program. These ATLSS models are used to evaluate the effects of different water regulation plans as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).

The need for such high-resolution hydrologic data is great. Although many hydrology data sets exist for South Florida, they either provide data at a spatial scale that is too coarse to apply to models of animal populations, or do not cover a large enough spatial area. For example, the hydrology data generated by the South Florida Water Management Model (SFWMM) provides hydrology data at a 2- x 2-mile resolution. Landscape features important to wildlife habitat, however, almost always require a finer scale of spatial resolution to be represented. With data from the SFWMM, individual model organisms only have information about the differences between 2- x 2-mile cells, a scale that is beyond the perceptual range of most organisms.