Water Storage Strategies

The South Florida Water Management District continues to work with public agencies, environmental organizations, ranchers, researchers, and other partners to expand water storage opportunities on both private and public lands. These collaborative efforts have resulted in dozens of projects that provide significant water storage capacity throughout the Greater Everglades Ecosystem.

Water storage is an important component of South Florida's integrated water management strategy. By temporarily storing excess stormwater, these projects help reduce high-volume inflows to Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries while supporting Everglades restoration, improving water quality, enhancing groundwater recharge, and strengthening regional water supply and ecosystem resilience.

Dispersed Water Management

The Dispersed Water Management program is one of the District’s key partnership initiatives. Authorized under the Northern Everglades and Estuaries Protection Program, the program supports the development of creative partnerships with agencies and private landowners, including opportunities for water storage and water quality improvement on private lands. These partnerships facilitate or further restoration of surface water resources in the Lake Okeechobee watershed, the Caloosahatchee River watershed, and the St. Lucie River watershed.

The objectives of the program are to provide shallow water storage, retention, and detention to enhance Lake Okeechobee and estuary health by moderating stormwater runoff, reducing nutrient loading to receiving waters, and expanding groundwater recharge opportunities.

Established in 2005, the program has evolved through several initiatives, including the Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project, the Northern Everglades Payment for Environmental Services Program, and the Water Farming Pilot Program. Today, it continues to be an important component of the District's regional water management strategy.

Dispersed Water Management Storage Capacity Tool

The Dispersed Water Management Storage Capacity Tool is a screening tool to evaluate water storage potential. This analysis estimates the relationship between water surface elevation, inundated area, and storage volume for the user-defined basin.

This stage-storage analysis is intended to support planning, screening, and preliminary water storage evaluations. Results should be reviewed and validated using appropriate engineering methods and site-specific survey data where required.

Please access the Dispersed Water Management Storage Capacity Tool here.