Florida Lakewatch

Florida Lakewatch, established in 1986, is a number of things. It has grown since its inception to do a number of tasks, all concerned with the health of lakes and rivers in Florida. There are more than 5,400 lakes in Florida and a number of rivers. Florida Lakewatch is basically a volunteer water-monitoring program. This project is headquartered at Gainesville, Florida, within the campus of the University of Florida. Florida Lakewatch has in its history obtained funding from a number of sources, but currently is mostly funded by the state of Florida. This project accepts donations from private donors, as well.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Florida Lakewatch
Agency overview
Formed1986
HeadquartersFisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Florida, 7922 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, Florida (the coordinates of the headquarters are above)
Agency executive
  • J. E. Canfield, Project director
Websitehttp://lakewatch.ifas.ufl.edu/
Sign near Florida Lakewatch headquarters

Volunteer involvement

The Florida Lakewatch program provides support to citizens interested in monitoring lakes and providing data they collect for the program. The Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences of the University of Florida provides faculty, staff and laboratory support to more than 1,800 volunteers. Reliable water chemistry data has been collected from more than 1,000 lakes from at least fifty counties. Florida Lakewatch works directly with citizens who live on or use lakes, rivers or waterways and are willing to participate in a long-term monitoring effort. These volunteers must have access to a boat, since much of the data collection must be done away from lake shores. Florida Lakewatch has at least basic information on 5,420 lakes in Florida.[7][8][9]

Services provided

Florida Lakewatch provides a variety of items useful to those interested in lakes. These include (all in the Florida Lakewatch website):

  • Bathymetric maps of approximately 320 Florida lakes
  • Various types of data grouped by subject matter
  • An online library of almost all the project's newsletters
  • Information about all the other Florida Lakewatch publications
  • Information about periodic volunteer meetings at the county level[10][11][12]

The Florida Lakewatch website contains links to the Florida Atlas of Lakes, produced by the University of South Florida's Water Atlas program. This program is supported by Florida Lakewatch and the Florida Lake Management Society. Through the Florida Atlas of Lakes seven county water atlases can be accessed. These are: the Polk County Water Atlas, the Hillsborough Water Atlas, the Pinellas County Water Atlas, the Sarasota County Water Atlas, the Seminole County Water Atlas, the Orange County Water Atlas, the Manatee County Water Atlas.[13]

References
  1. Florida Lakewatch website, at http://lakewatch.ifas.ufl.edu Archived 2005-12-26 at the Wayback Machine. .
  2. City of Orlando website, at http://www.cityoforlando.net/public_works/stormwater/lakewatch.htm Archived 2013-05-03 at the Wayback Machine .
  3. Scistarter website, at http://scistarter.com/project/339-Florida%20LAKEWATCH .
  4. Elaine Bennett, "Thinking green - YOUR ENVIRONMENT: Florida Lakewatch Members Hope To Help Preserve Lake Ecosystems And Water Quality," September 26, 1991, in the Orlando Sentinel online, at http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-26/news/9109250792_1_lakes-water-quality-water-samples .
  5. Kat Atunes, "Group hopes to help keep tabs on aquifer's levels," December 15, 2013, in the Gainesville Sun online, at http://www.gainesville.com/article/20131215/ARTICLES/131219737#gsc.tab=0 .
  6. Research, Education & Economics Information System (REEIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website, at http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/0207052-florida-lakewatch.html .
  7. REEIS in USDA website.
  8. Florida Lakewatch website.
  9. Elaine Bennett, "Thinking green - YOUR ENVIRONMENT: Florida Lakewatch Members Hope To Help Preserve Lake Ecosystems And Water Quality," September 26, 1991, in the Orlando Sentinel online, at http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1991-09-26/news/9109250792_1_lakes-water-quality-water-samples .
  10. Highlands County Soil & Water Conservation District website, at http://www.highlandsswcd.org/volunteers.shtml .
  11. Conservancy of Southwest Florida website, at http://www.conservancy.org/our-work/water-issues-and-research-Lakewatch-Volunteer-Water-Quality-Program .
  12. Elizabeth Herron, "Volunteer vs. Professional: Are We Good Enough??," Powerpoint display for presentations in USA Water Quality website, at http://www.usawaterquality.org/conferences/2007/PPTs&Posters/Meetings/Vol_mon/Herron.pdf Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine .
  13. Florida Atlas of Lakes, http://www.wateratlas.usf.edu/AtlasOfLakes/Florida/ .
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