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.