DEVELOPMENT OF A WEB-BASED TOOL FOR COASTAL WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

The sustainability of coastal water resources and infrastructure can be adversely affected by many factors including climate change, relative sea-level rise, and anthropogenic modifications to land use and hydrologic systems. The proximity of the ocean to crucial infrastructure, vital freshwater resources, and delicate ecosystems further complicates coastal water management. Additionally, the interrelation of the water cycle and biogeochemical processes can result in management activities in one part of the coastal system having unintended consequences elsewhere in the system. Making science-based management decisions to prepare for and respond to the combined effects of climate change, sea-level rise, and human activities on such a complex system requires comprehensive data about surface-water levels, flows and salinities, and groundwater levels and salinities. Coastal water managers often make decisions based on information pieced together from multiple sources because the available data and tools are scattered across various databases and websites. Thus, to aid coastal water managers, a prototype website, the Coastal Data and Analysis Tool for Water Resources Management (CDAT-WRM), is being developed to consolidate data from multiple organizations and provide statistical analysis of hydrologic and water-quality data and visualizations showing data and temporal trends. The prototype website will merge and expand on two existing U.S. Geological Survey websites, the Water Level and Salinity Analysis Mapper and the Coastal Salinity Index, and will lay a foundation for combining groundwater, surface-water, and water-quality data into one analytical tool. An overview of the CDAT-WRM and details about the analytical products it provides will be presented. Trends in water level, salinity, and flow from groundwater and surface-water sites in southeast Florida will be used to demonstrate the utility of the CDAT-WRM for coastal water managers and the general public.