Abstract
At the fringe of Everglades National Park in southwest Florida, United States, the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (TTINWR) habitat has been heavily affected by the disruption of natural freshwater flow across the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41). As the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) proposes to restore the natural sheet flow from the Picayune Strand Restoration Project area north of the highway, the impact of planned measures on the hydrology in the refuge needs to be taken into account. The objective of this study was to develop a simple, computationally efficient mass balance model to simulate the spatial and temporal patterns of water level and salinity within the area of interest. This model could be used to assess the effects of the proposed management decisions on the surface water hydrological characteristics of the refuge. Surface water variations are critical to the maintenance of wetland processes. The model domain is divided into 10 compartments on the basis of their shared topography, vegetation, and hydrologic characteristics. A diversion of of the discharge recorded during the modeling period was simulated in the primary canal draining the Picayune Strand forest north of the Tamiami Trail (Faka Union Canal) and this discharge was distributed as overland flow through the refuge area. Water depths were affected only modestly. However, in the northern part of the refuge, the hydroperiod, i.e., the duration of seasonal flooding, was increased by 21 days (from 115 to 136 days) for the simulation during the 2008 wet season, with an average water level rise of 0.06 m. The average salinity over a two-year period in the model area just south of Tamiami Trail was reduced by approximately 8 practical salinity units (psu) (from 18 to 10 psu), whereas the peak dry season average was reduced from 35 to 29 psu (by 17%). These salinity reductions were even larger with greater flow diversions (). Naturally, the reduction in salinity diminished toward the open water areas where the daily flood tides mix in saline bay water. Partially restoring hydrologic flows to TTINWR will affect hydroperiod and salinity regimes within downslope wetlands, and perhaps serve as a management tool to reduce the speed of future encroachment of mangroves into marsh as sea levels rise.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support for this study was provided by the USGS National Wetlands Research Center, USGS Priority Ecosystems Research Program, and the National Park Service’s Critical Ecosystems Initiative. The study used data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey, South Florida Water Management District, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection at the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve with funding through NOAA’s Estuarine Research Division. The authors would like to extend appreciation to Laura Brandt and G. Ronnie Best for arranging financial support of this project, and Terry J. Doyle, Lars Soderqvist, Eric D. Swain, Thomas W. Doyle, Patrick O’Donnell, Michael J. Barry, Joyce Palmer, Ben Nottingham, Layne Hamilton, Matthew Martin, and Kevin Godsea for contributing to the design, implementation, and data collection for this project, and/or for facilitating permission to access refuge lands. Special thanks to the anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the clarity of this manuscript, as well as to Mike Waldon and Paul Conrads for their insights. The use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 22 • Issue 1 • January 2017
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Aug 29, 2014
Accepted: May 8, 2015
Published online: Jul 14, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 14, 2015
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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