Why the Suwannee
River?
Unregulated and Rural: The Suwannee is
ideal for an observatory for both pure scientific reasons as well as practical
environmental applications. It is one of the last largely unregulated rivers in
the U.S.
The basin, currently with good water quality, could represent a relatively
unimpacted watershed for comparison with highly impacted and urbanized
watersheds.
At-Risk and In
Transition:
Current land use is fairly low impact but is in transition to more intense urban abd agricultural use as the
population of the region grows. These changes in land use could impact water
quality and quantity within the basin. Population growth in the
state has prompted the recommendation of inter-basin transfers. As these changes occur, the Observatory would
be positioned to document their effect and recommend strategies to minimize
undesirable consequences.
Three Distinct
Hydrologic Regimes: The observatory will study the transition
between three distinct but linked hydrologic regimes:
Upper Suwannee:
Interacts with the surficial aquifer. Surface water dominates.
Lower Suwannee:
Interacts with karst Floridan Aquifer.
Deltaic Estuary: Contributed to by the
lower Suwannee River along with substantial submarine
groundwater discharge.
Existing Monitoring
Infrastructure: The
Suwannee Basin has extensive existing monitoring
infrastructure. Some
discharge data exists from the turn of the 19th century to the present. More
recently, the USDA Agricultural Research Service through the Southeast
Watershed Research Laboratory (SEWRL) has monitored the Little River watershed
in Georgia at the headwaters
of the Suwannee River
since 1965, and the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) has
monitored the Suwannee River watershed in Florida since 1972. Other groups (USGS,
Suwannee River Partnership, and individual university investigators) have long
worked on specific, local geological, hydrological, and biological problems
within the watershed.
The observatory will include the entire Suwannee River
watershed (~25,000 km2). The structure
of the observatory is still being developed, but primary points of operation
will probably be at universities and satellite field facilities within Florida and Georgia.
The Suwannee
River is also notable in
that its the only river with its
own
song.