Dissolved-solids budget of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, October 1964 to September 1974

Lake Okeechobee is a major surface-water storage facility for south Florida. A dissolved-solids budget for Lake Okeechobee was computed for Oct. 1964 to Sept. 1974, a 10-year budget period. Calculations were based on records of daily discharge, daily specific conductance measurements, and regression equations relating dissolved-solids concentrations and specific conductance. The lake received more than 13 million acre-feet of rainfall during the budget period and lost more than 18 million acre-feet of water to evaporation. Lake Okeechobee received more than 20 million acre-feet of inflow and released almost 16 million acre-feet to distributaries. A water budget of 34.48 million acre-feet for the 10-year budget period was computed. Rainfall produced an input of 460,000 tons of dissolved solids to Lake Okeechobee. Inflow from tributaries and distributaries added 5.51 million tons of dissolved solids to the lake and outflow to distributaries removed 6.71 million tons. A dissolved-solids budget of 6.99 million tons for the 10-year budget period was computed. (Woodard-USGS)