Question

1. Though Florida receives a lot of rainfall, only 1 percent remains available for people to use or drink. What happens to the rest of the water? 2. Because Florida has such a large underground water system, which four (4) other states receive drinking water from Florida? 3. Name one reason people in Florida wanted to get rid of the water in certain areas. 4. What was one negative result of the changes people made to get rid of the water? 5. What is one thing that has been done to try and improve those mistakes?

Answer 1

1. Although the state of Florida receives a lot of rainfall, about 61 percent of that water leaves the ground by evaporation and transpiration, and another 38 percent is ‘lost’ into the Atlantic Ocean & Gulf of Mexico, thus leaving only 1 percent of the rainfall water available for drinking and other human use. 

 2. Florida has a very vast underground water system, known as the Floridan aquifer system; for this reason, Florida is the source of drinking water to four other states. These states are South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The Floridan underground water system is made up of the Upper and Lower Floridan aquifers.

3. Residents of the state of Florida wanted to get rid of the water in certain areas of the state because there was too many wetlands, they experienced frequent flooding which posed a great measure of difficulty in navigating the state.

4. One negative result of the changes made by people in order to get rid of the ‘excess’ water in Florida was groundwater depletion which has led to the drying up of wells, decrease in water level in streams and lakes, reducing quality of water and land subsidence.

5. One thing that has been done to try and improve those mistakes is Rainwater harvesting; a method which is often used to replenish ground water. Using the rainwater harvesting approach, an outlet pipe is connected from the rooftop and used to divert the rainwater to existing wells.