Where Florida's water goes
Maps of Florida's rivers, springs, and sinks, from the springs belt to the St. Lucie, built from USGS, FDEP, and Florida Geological Survey data.
Where does the rain go?Every mapped creek in Florida, from the Perdido to the Keys, colored by whether it reaches the Gulf, the Atlantic, or the aquifer, and followed down the rivers to the sea. Florida's springs and snorkel spotsEvery spring on the state's list, sized by how much water it puts out, with places to snorkel from the Panhandle to the Keys, the coastal lagoons, and the springsheds its cleanup plans cover. Florida's state parks keep its waterEvery state park, trail, and historic site, shaded by the water it protects: springs, rivers, lakes and wetlands, coast, or reef. Which springs are in them, and the two that hold living reef. The Apalachicola starts at a damFlorida's biggest river begins where the Chattahoochee and the Flint meet at the Georgia line, after Atlanta and the farms upstream take their share. Live flow down the whole basin to Apalachicola Bay and its oysters, and the fight over the water. The St. Johns runs north, barely downhillFlorida's longest river falls less than 30 feet in 310 miles, and the tide pushes it backward as far as Lake George. Live flow from the headwater marshes to Jacksonville, where it can run upstream, and the river's fall mile by mile. The Santa Fe breathes groundwaterRiver and spring flow, the underground stretch at O'Leno, and the aquifer from before development to today. The Ocklawaha is still dammed for an unfinished canalA dam built in 1968 for the Cross Florida Barge Canal still floods 15 miles of the river and 20 springs, though the canal was stopped in 1971. Live flow from Silver Springs to the St. Johns, and Silver Springs' flow since 1933. Rainbow River starts full grownA river that rises out of the ground at full size: its springs, the springshed that feeds them, the Withlacoochee it joins, and sixty years of flow. The Indian River Lagoon barely trades with the sea156 miles of water four feet deep behind the barrier islands, with just five inlets to the sea. How far its water sits from an inlet, and live flow from the creeks and drainage canals that feed it. The Peace River lost its springKissengen Spring fed the Peace until 1950, when wells for phosphate mines and farms drew the aquifer down and it went dry. Now the upper river leaks into sinks. Live flow from Bartow to Charlotte Harbor, the mined land, and how far the aquifer has fallen. The Kissimmee got its bends backStraightened into a 56-mile canal in the 1960s, the river has 44 miles of its winding channel back since the restoration finished in 2021. The canal still open at each end, the bends between, and live flow into Lake Okeechobee. Lake Okeechobee used to drain southCanals now take Florida's biggest lake west, east, and south. Live flow at its outlets, and where its water has gone since 1932. The St. Lucie was plumbed to a lakeA century-old canal ties the St. Lucie River to Lake Okeechobee. Live flow at both ends of the canal, the estuary's salinity, and lake releases since 1931. The Florida panther came back with help from TexasDown to 20 or 30 by the early 1990s, and brought back with eight pumas from Texas. Four decades of FWC radio-collar tracking through the Big Cypress, every panther death on record, and the river they're only now crossing. Florida's Coral Reef lost its buildersAbout 350 miles of reef from the St. Lucie Inlet to the Dry Tortugas, glinting with NOAA's latest heat stress, and the heat and disease that took its main reef-building corals.