Acronyms and Springs Glossary

Acronyms

Many acronyms are used in water-related discussions and on this website and it’s important to know what they stand for. Here’s a list of some of the more common ones, coupled with the Alliance advisory board’s assessment of some of them.

 

BMP:  Best Management Practices, used by agriculture in attempts to mitigate pollution. Voluntary, not enforced, and ineffective to date.

 

BMAP:  Basin Management Action Plan, developed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to control pollution in a springshed or river basin. Ineffective to date in the Santa Fe, Ichetucknee, and Suwannee rivers areas.

 

CAFO:  Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation

 

CDER:  Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

 

CEJ:  Center for Earth Jurisprudence at Barry University Law School in Orlando

 

CELDF:  Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

 

CUP:  Consumptive Use Permit to pump water, now called Water Use Permit

 

DEP: Department of Environmental Protection (see FDEP)

 

EPA:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

 

FACETS:  Floridan Aquifer Collaborative Engagement for Sustainability

 

FDEP:  Florida Department of Environmental Protection, charged with controlling water pollution in the state

 

FGS:  Florida Geological Survey

 

FPS:  Florida Park Service, a unit of FDEP

 

FSC:  Florida Springs Council

 

FSI:  Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute

 

MFL:  Minimum Flows & Levels, set by the appropriate water management districts as the flow level below which significant harm would occur to lakes, rivers and springs.

 

NFSEG model:  North Florida-Southeast Georgia water model, used by both the SRWMD and SJRWMD to make water use decisions.

 

SAV:  Submerged aquatic vegetation

 

SJRWMD:  St. Johns River Water Management District in Northeast Florida that includes Jacksonville/Duval County

 

SRWMD:  Suwannee River Water Management District, the state agency charged with protecting water supply for people and natural systems in the Ichetucknee’s area.

 

TMDL:  Total Maximum Daily Load, a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act that indicates the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quality standards. Florida has thousands of impaired water bodies that are not meeting these standards.

 

USGS: U.S. Geological Survey

 

WMD:  Water Management District, charged with controlling water supply in one of five different areas: Northwest Florida, Southwest Florida, South Florida, Suwannee River, and St. Johns River. The 2016 water bill allows for transfers of water between districts.

 

WUP:  Water Use Permit

 

Springs Glossary

 

Artesian:  A spring or well that flows naturally without pumping.

 

Aquifer:  A body of permeable rock that can contain or transmit groundwater.

 

Aquitard:  Confining layers of soil that inhibit groundwater movement.

 

Estavelle: Refers to a spring that reverses flow (i.e., receives instead of produces water), usually during flood events.

 

Fissure:  A fracture or crack in rock.

 

Floridan aquifer:  One of the most productive aquifers in the world that extends throughout Florida and into parts of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi.

 

Groundwater:  Underground water in the soil, in rock or in an aquifer.

 

Karst:  Landscape underlain by limestone that has been eroded by dissolution, which produces ridges, towers, fissures, sinkholes and other characteristic landforms. Adjective:  karstic. Verb:  karstify.

 

Karst window:  A geomorphic feature found in karst landscapes where groundwater in an aquifer is visible within a sinkhole from the surrounding surface.

 

Limestone:  A hard sedimentary rock composed mainly of calcium carbonate (the minerals calcite and aragonite) or dolomite.

 

Magnitude:  Denotes the amount of water that comes out of a spring. First-magnitude springs have the greatest flow.

 

Sink:  See swallet.

 

Sinkhole:  A cavity in the ground, especially in limestone bedrock, that is caused by water erosion and provides a route for surface water to disappear underground.

 

Spring:  A point at which water flows from an aquifer to Earth’s surface.

 

Swallet:  An opening through which a stream or river disappears underground.