Issue 58

National Park Service hydrologist Bob Sobczak didn’t know what he was getting into when he headed into South Florida’s Everglades 10 years ago. Confusing streams of hydrologic data unfolded from all directions on a daily basis.

He began with a simple idea: start graphing the data.

One graph led to the next which led to the next, and then to the next. Before Bob knew it, he was creating a dizzying array of graphs to show his data. The graphing grew and data began to interact with yet more data. Now, his work includes multiple graph and map types using Golden Software’s Grapher, Surfer, MapViewer, and Scripter programs to create an online and interactive fantasyland of hydrologic graphs and maps. Golden Software programs are his most trusted tools in his computer toolbox – as both hydrologist and in creating the journal. Can you imagine a carpenter without a hammer or saw? Bob says that would be him without his Golden Software applications.

What Is The Journal?
The South Florida Watershed Journal is an online journal that illuminates and celebrates the complex inner-workings within and among the interconnected waterways and wetlands of south Florida’s Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades and adjacent Big Cypress watersheds. The journal also seeks to understand and explain how those waters feed into downstream coastal waters. The journal translates many different types of data into formats that are illuminating, easy to digest, and within a mouse click away of one’s fingertips.

The journal operates in the newest scientific frontier – bringing real-time numeric data to individuals quickly and in an easily understood format. Week after week of data is shown, as it unfolds. Week after week, the data is linked to the historical parade of numbers that came before, with a strong editorial eye on translating this rich and constant flow of information into narrative and graphical formats that enables viewers to easily decode and stay in tune with the constant ebb and flow of south Florida’s water cycle.

What the Journal Shows
A quick visit to the site shows graphs of air temperature, water tables, and annual flow mixed among gorgeous pictures of the Everglades, including from scenic Big Cypress National Preserve where Bob works.

This photo was taken in a cypress dome located in Big Cypress National Preserve.
Note the hydrologic monitoring station tucked in the background.

This sample graph was created in Grapher using multiple line/scatter plots, colored backgrounds, multiple axes, white grid lines, and an inserted MapViewer post map. The months of air temperature data are well explained by the graph, but the site adds a comment below that speaks to the heart of the data being displayed.

Boston we feel for you!
It's been a long cold winter, but fear not,
Spring blooms eternal and warmth is on the way.
Classed post map of data file. Note existence of outlier points

The truly impressive graphing and mapping is found on the Data Dashboard. Here, graphs and maps are interactive. Click on the map and you find more information about the watershed including even more interactive graphs and maps. All graphs have been customized with additional graphics that help express the data in better terms, as well. For instance, this simple rain over the past 30 days graph also depicts a rain cloud and rain drops. Clicking on the accumulated rain bar graph:

Bar chart graph shows the bars and axes, in addition to
imported graphics to make the graph more interesting.

leads you to an interactive MapViewer map:

MapViewer pin and bar maps display points you can click on for more information about a particular area.

that allows you to click on any pin map or bar map point and see the historic data for that location.

This graph shows data for Lake Okeechobee, which has been experiencing a record drought.

Other maps and graphs show just how bad the drought has been:

Who Reads the Journal?
The journal is a "water page" for south Florida’s newspapers. In the same spirit that investors grab the business page to view financial trend lines or sports fans scan the sports page to track their favorite team or players, watchers of the journal can keep track of the Florida water cycle.

Every week a few thousand people tie up their boots to head in to work, play, or think about various parts or issues of the greater Everglades watersheds. There are also the Everglades enthusiasts both near and far that daydream of their adventures past and future in the uncharted watercourses and wetlands of south Florida. They need a place they can quickly glance at and digest the numbers -- just like looking at a watch -- in a way that keeps them in tune with the constant tick of South Florida's water cycle and watersheds.

Bob jokes that the journal is the cattle egret on the back of the rhino. Who are the rhinos? The rhinos are all of the agencies and organizations that support hydrologic monitoring and data dissemination in their part of the south Florida waterscape. That includes the South Florida Water Management District, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Geological Survey, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Everglades National Park to name a few.

The journal has cultivated this sizeable and growing niche readership – receiving over 100 visits on a single day, and averaging hundreds of visits per week. This makes the journal a potent and multi-faceted outreach tool (i.e., informational, educational) for an otherwise geographically diffuse and hard to reach network of Everglades professionals, stakeholders, and enthusiasts. This site is also a potential model for application in other coastal watersheds and aquifers.

Rain or shine, week in and week out, South Florida's water cycle continues to turn. The South Florida Watershed Journal (SFWJ) is there to tell its story.

About the Author
Robert V Sobczak is a National Park Service Hydrologist at Big Cypress National Preserve, who has lived and worked in south Florida for the past 10 years. He received a Civil Engineering degree of Lafayette College, PA and a Hydrology degree at University of Arizona, and worked in Cape Cod, Massachusetts prior to moving to Florida. His contact information is available on the journal.