Creating a monthly time series of the potentiometric surface in the Upper Floridan aquifer, Northern Tampa Bay area, Florida, January 2000-December 2009

Abstract

For more information on the USGS-the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living resources, natural hazards, and the environment, visit http://www.usgs.gov or call 1-888-ASK-USGS.For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprodTo order this and other USGS information products, visit http://store.usgs.gov Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the copyright owner.Suggested citation: Lee, T.M. and Fouad, G.G., 2014, Creating a monthly time series of the potentiometric surface in the Upper Floridan aquifer, Northern Tampa Bay area, Florida, January 2000-December 2009: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5038, 26 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20145038. ISSN 2328-0328 (online) iii AcknowledgmentsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the staff of the Southwest Florida Water Management District for providing data and assistance to the study, and Sandie Will, Michael Hancock, and Jason Patterson for their reviews of the report. Tampa Bay Water provided groundwater monitoring data to the study. Dr. Steven Reader and Jason Simms (University of South Florida, Department of Geography) provided early assistance with geostatistical approaches and numerous helpful discussions.Paul Conrads and Matthew Petkewich (U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), South Carolina Water Science Center) provided invaluable assistance and specialized programs for analyzing groundwater data and estimating missing values. Anita Ortiz (USGS, Florida Water Science Center, Tampa) provided assistance with USGS groundwater monitoring data, and along with Jason Bellino (USGS, Florida Water Science Center, Tampa), contributed much-appreciated mapping support to the study. Contents AbstractIn Florida's karst terrain, where groundwater and surface waters interact, a mapping time series of the potentiometric surface in the Upper Floridan aquifer offers a versatile metric for assessing the hydrologic condition of both the aquifer and overlying streams and wetlands. Long-term groundwater monitoring data were used to generate a monthly time series of potentiometric surfaces in the Upper Floridan aquifer over a 573-square-mile area of west-central Florida between January 2000 and December 2009. Recorded groundwater elevations were collated for 260 groundwater monitoring wells in the Northern Tampa Bay area, and a continuous time series of daily observations was created for 197 of the wells by estimating missing daily values through regression relations with other monitoring wells. Kriging was used to interpolate the monthly average potentiometric-surface elevation in the Upper Floridan aquifer over a decade. The mapping time series gives spatial and tempor...

A Spatially Distributed Groundwater Metric for Describing Hydrologic Changes in a Regional Population of Wetlands North of Tampa Bay, Florida, from 1990 to 2015

“…Potentiometric-surface elevations were from Lee and Fouad (2017) available at https://www.swfwmd.state. .us/resources/data-maps/hydrologic-data.…”

“….us/resources/data-maps/hydrologic-data. Lee and Fouad (2017) applied a kriging approach developed in Lee and Fouad (2014) to interpolate monthly-average potentiometric surfaces in meters above/below the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29) from 1990 to 2015. Monthly-average potentiometric surfaces were compared to wetland land-surface elevations derived from a gridded light detection and ranging (LiDAR) product provided by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (available upon request at https://www.swfwmd.state.…”

“…Legally mandated cutbacks in well eld pumping started in 2003 (Interlocal Agreement 1998, p. 75), decreasing the average withdrawal rate to below 341 mld (SWFWMD 2015, p. 67). The response in the potentiometric-surface elevations in the Upper Floridan aquifer was recorded by 260 monitoring wells (Lee and Fouad 2014 Appendix 1), that were used to generate monthly-average potentiometric surfaces from 1990 to 2015 in Lee and Fouad (2017). The surfaces span a 1505-square-kilometer mapping area (Fig.…”

“…Potentiometric surfaces often represent groundwater conditions at a single point in time (see Bellino 2011;Ortiz 2011;Ameli and Creed 2017). However, a monitoring well network with enough synchronous measurements can be used to generate a time series of potentiometric surfaces (Lee and Fouad 2014), which in turn may be used to evaluate changes in wetland groundwater conditions. This approach has been applied to assess groundwater discharge into streams (Costelloe et al 2015), but a similar study of wetlands was not found in the literature.…”

“…The present study uses a potentiometric surface time series based on Lee and Fouad (2014), and later extended by Lee and Fouad (2017), to calculate the difference between potentiometric elevations and land-surface elevations for 10,516 wetlands. The subsequent analysis applies the new metric of wetland groundwater condition to assess hydrologic changes in unmonitored wetlands before and after historic groundwater pumping cutbacks in an area north of Tampa Bay.…”