Flow monitoring along the western Tamiami Trail between County Road 92 and State Road 29 in support of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, 2007-20101

The section of the Tamiami Trail that was studied contains too many structures (35 bridges and 16 culverts) to cost-effectively measure each structure on a continuous basis, so the area was divided into seven subbasins. One bridge within each of the subbasins was instrumented with an acoustic Doppler velocity meter. The index velocity method was used to compute discharge at the seven instrumented bridges.

Periodic discharge measurements were made at all structures, using acoustic Doppler current profilers at bridges and acoustic Doppler velocity meters at culverts. Continuous daily mean values of discharge for the uninstrumented structures were calculated on the basis of relations between the measured discharge at the uninstrumented stations and the discharge and stage at the instrumented bridge. Estimates of daily mean discharge are available beginning in 2006 or 2007 through September 2010 for all structures.

Subbasin comparison is limited to water years 2008?2010. The Faka Union Canal contributed more than half (on average 60 percent) of the flow under the Tamiami Trail between State Road 29 and County Road 92 during water years 2008?2010. During water years 2008?2010, an average 9 percent of the flow through the study area came from west of the Faka Union Canal and an average 31 percent came from east of the Faka Union Canal.

Flow data provided by this study serve as baseline information about the seasonal and spatial distribution of freshwater flow under the Tamiami Trail between County Road 92 and State Road 29, and study results provide data to evaluate restoration efforts.