SOFIA - OFR-FL-68003

The rapid urbanization of many parts of southwest Florida has created numerous water-supply problems for both public and private water systems. The increased water demands by the expanding population, the increased water requirements for commercial and agricultural purposes, and the development of extensive drainage networks for the disposal of excess water have added to the magnitude and complexity of these problems.

map showing location of area described in this report

Figure 1. Location of area described in this report. [larger image]

This discussion is generally restricted to the water-supply problems that affect large segments of the urban and potential urban areas. Southwest Florida, as referred to herein, includes the five counties -- Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee -- adjacent to the lower west coast of Florida as shown in figure 1. Four of the five counties -- Charlotte, Collier, Hendry, and Lee -- are among the 15 counties in Florida with the most rapid population increase for the period 1960-64, as shown in Table 1 (Florida Development Commission, 1965). In the past 15 years, the population of this 5-county area has increased by more than 300 percent. The more densely populated areas are along the coastal margins and tidal waterways.

Water-supply problems in southwest Florida are largely related to the quality, or deterioration in the quality of the water, rather than to the quantity of water available. When we consider that the abundant supply of water visible at the surface is only a fraction of the quantity stored in the ground-water reservoir beneath the surface, we are likely to conclude that the quantity of water available is more than adequate to meet present and future needs. However, because of certain natural factors, combined with those related to man's use, the supply of water of good quality is limited.

In southwest Florida most of the water of good quality occurs at the surface in lakes, ponds, streams and canals, and beneath the surface as ground water in the nonartesian and shallow artesian aquifers. At greater depths, the Floridan aquifer, a major source of supply in the northern and central parts of the state, contains water of poor quality. Water from this deep source is highly mineralized and the most objectionable constituent is chloride which varies over a wide range of concentration, but probably averages about 1,000 ppm (parts per million). Many of the water-supply problems in southwest Florida are similar to those encountered in other areas. However, the presence of salt water along the coast and in the tidal waterways, plus the high chlorides in the Floridan aquifer make the problem of salt-water intrusion of much greater significance in this area than in other parts of the state.

These reports and documents have been scanned from the original hard-copy materials and are made available on the internet in both HTML and PDF formats. Because these are scanned documents, we are unable to provide fully-accessible versions of these reports. If you cannot fully access the information in these documents, please contact Heather S. Henkel at hhenkel@usgs.gov.

The HTML versions of these documents have been created to provide the information in a format that is quickly and easily readable over the Internet. Selective pages and images can be printed from this HTML version by placing the cursor inside the right-hand frame and selecting the print option from the browser. The PDF version of the reports are also provided, and are the recommended format to use for the best printer format and resolution.

Please note - some PDF files are very large (over 2 MB) and may take some time to download, depending on your system.

Water-Supply Problems in Southwest Florida

INTRODUCTION