94

S. Soil Conservation Service (U. S. Department of

Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service, 1968), which

define several soils-associations as being "frequently

inundated." For southwest Florida in 1968 these soils

associations were: Pompano-Charlotte-Delray, Manatee-

Felda, Everglades-Brighton, Tucker-Perrine, Okeelanta-

Brighton, and Freshwater Marsh and Swamp. Areas of these

soils associations in Hendry, Collier, and Lee counties

were determined from the maps using the automatic area

meter.

 County highway maps of the Florida Department of

Transportation offered a second alternate means of

determining the area of wetlands in the study region.

These maps indicate areas of "swamp" and "marsh," which

also were measured with the automatic area meter.



The Hypsographic and Area-Volume Curves

 Points on the depth-area curve were approximated by

estimating the amount of surface area covered by water at

different water depths at the site of deepest water (or

lowest relative elevation). The site of lowest relative

elevation was assumed to be the centers of the deeper ponds

in the centers of the larger sloughs. It was assumed that,

as water depth increased, areas became covered by water in

the following sequence: ponds in the centers of sloughs

and strands, sloughs and strands, ponds in wet prairies,

wet prairies,.ponds in pineland, pineland, and palmetto and