Discharge, Mapping, Modeling and Beyond: The Hunt for Submerged Springs

Hydrologists and water monitoring specialists at the St. Johns River Water Management District are on the quest to find submerged springs along the bottom of the Saint Johns River and to understand the springs’ input to the river system when the river level is at different stages. Quantifying the inputs from different sources into the river is an important goal for the team, as increasing nutrient levels are affecting the growth of vegetation and the quality of the water supply. They already owned a SonTek RiverSurveyor M9 for routine river discharge measurements. After discovering that it was possible to upgrade their M9 to a HydroSurveyor, the SJRWMD now had a new tool for bathymetric and velocity field mapping.