Wet Prairie

 Total acreage of wet prairie was taken from the land

use maps (DeBellevue, 1976; Brown, 1976; and Lehman, 1976).

Elevation transects (Florida Department of Transportation,

pers. comm.) across the Big Cypress at the Alligator Alley

alignment in 1964 provided an estimate of average water

depth over broad areas of wet prairie during the wet season

prior to extensive drainage of the area. Total area of wet

prairie was multiplied by depth to obtain water volume for

that time.

 When wet prairies and dwarf cypress areas are covered

with water, the strands and other depressions they surround

are covered to greater depths than their rim height,

therefore an additional depth was added to calculations of

volume for strands and swamp hammocks when surrounding

areas were flooded. Sloughs, which are surrounded by

pineland rather than wet prairie, are not generally covered

beyond their rims, except during extremely high water.

Many strands and sloughs had rims that were slightly higher

than the general land surface outside the depressions,

which complicated the relationship of water depth to area

of water coverage (Figure 15).



General Wetlands Area

 Two other methods were used to determine average

maximum wetlands area under natural conditions. The first

was based on the county soils-associations maps of the U.