Watershed Protection
The geographic area through which water flows across a land and drains into a common body of water
What is a watershed?
A decrease in phosphorus reduces this sea organism
What is Algae?
provides the statutory basis for state water quality standards programs, it was passed by Congress on October 18, 1972—establishing a nationwide approach to improving the quality of our nation's lakes, rivers, streams, and other water bodies.
How does the Federal Clean Water Act affect Florida?
SDWA stands for
The Federal Safe Drinking Water Act
is a land area or region that funnels whatever water that falls in it to the same place, be it a wetland, river, lake, or ocean.
What is the definition of a watershed in environmental science?
Also known as a 'watershed plan'
What is watershed protection?
This pattern causes erratic whether changes
What is climate change?
What does the Clean Water Act (CWA) make illegal?
The CWA made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained: EPA's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program controls discharges.
Applies to systems that provide piped water to 25 or more people 60 days or more out of the year, or have 15 or more service connections.
What is the Safe water Act in Florida?
What is a drainage basin?
it is a watershed area, that feeds larger water bodies such as major rivers and seas.
The actions taken to protect our drinking water
What is a source water protection plan?
This two groups are the most damaging to lakes.
What are human's farming and mining?
What is the protection of future and existing sources of drinking water?
Who regulates water in Florida?
The Department of Environmental Protection has the primary role of regulating public water systems in Florida.
1.Watershed boundaries (the highest ridgeline that divides the water falling into one watershed from that of another called drainage divides.
2.Nested Hierarchy: Watersheds come in many sizes.
3.Landscape and Water Flow: depends on the landscape's characteristics such as steepness, soil type, and land cover. As gravity pulls water downhill, the steeper the terrain, the faster the flow. What the water is flowing over and through also affects its speed and destination. Water flowing over land covered with vegetation will move slowly and steadily, allowing some of it to soak into the ground. Water flowing over hard rock or barren soil moves fast and all at once. That is why flash flooding is so common after forest fires destroy the vegetation in a watershed.
What are the main three characteristics of watersheds?
The 3 benefits of a healthy watershed
What is economical, ecological, and human health?
What is the water contamination in Florida 2023?
The Florida Department of Health in Martin County has issued a Health Alert for the presence of harmful blue-green algal toxins for the waters near Port Mayaca in Indiantown. This is in response to water samples taken by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on November 13, 2023.
The Clean Water Act has been successful at reducing pollution that enters our rivers and lakes from 'point sources. ' These are single, identifiable sources of pollution like wastewater treatment plants and factories. However, 'nonpoint source' pollution is still a significant problem for clean water.
How effective is the Clean Water Act?
Most of Florida's tap water comes from underground aquifers, which are surrounded by limestone and soil. Unfortunately, that soil and limestone shell can't keep everything out of the aquifers, as agricultural runoff, saltwater intrusion, sewage and septic tank leakage have already shown
Why does Florida has bad tap water?
Watersheds can vary in size. At less than 2500 acres, a micro-watershed may feed a small stream or pond. The watershed supplying drinking water to a town could be dozens of square miles in size. Larger scale drainage basins emptying into the ocean could span half a continent. Such basins are composed of many smaller sub-basins and watersheds.
What are three examples of a watershed?
This serves to filter sediments and contaminants so they don't reach our streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater.
What is a healthy watershed?
This is the goal of the environmental action plan
What is increasing the ecological health of watershed?
These 2 things must be reviewed and looked at in order to make proper changes
What are existing and potential threats?
Brown, red, orange, or yellow water is usually caused by rust. Rusty water occurs from sediment in the pipes or rust from the inside walls of the supply lines.
Why is water yellow in Florida?
because what happens in them, be it natural or human-caused, affects downstream water quality and streamflow. For example, because water is a great solvent, diffuse contaminants over a wide area (non-point source pollution) can become concentrated as water in the basin is funneled to the same place. Integrated watershed management taking a holistic approach can improve water quality, help control flooding and erosion, and enhance other free services they provide such as soil for agriculture, wildlife habitat, and destinations for outdoor recreation.
Why are Watersheds important ?