Table 1. --Surface area ac mean high water, volume at mean high 

 water, and maximum diurnal tidal range of estuarine study 

 areas, west coast of Florida 



Surface 



area Volume Diurnal 



Study area . , 



at mean at mean tidal, , 



high water high water range- 



27 17 57 — 



Acres— Acre- feet — Feet— 



Florida Bay 557,528 2,532^790 5/ 1.6 



Lake Ingraham 2,372 — — 



Whitewater Bay 46,532 180,419 0.8 



Cape Sable to 



Lostmans River 24,067 187,490 4.5 



Lostmans River to 



Mormon Key 7,395 36,433 4.2 



Mormon Key to 



Caxambas Pass 69,824 345,296 4.4 



Caxarabas Pass to 



Gordon River 12,522 67,471 4.3 



Doctors Pass to 



Estero Pass 14,000 54,615 2.8 



Caloosahatchee River. 22,926 131,291 1.2 



Pine Island Sound 77,024 434,507 2.6 



Charlotte Harbor 121,793 1,727,514 1.9 



Lemon Bay 6,042 36,410 1.6 



Sarasota Bay System.. 34,746 192,540 2.2 



Tampa Bay 150,485 2,338,905 2.3 



Hillsborough Bay 28,900 335,585 2.8 



Old Tampa Bay 57,834 616,625 2.8 



Boca Ciega Bay 35,424 234,161 2.3 



St. Joseph Sound 33,280 161,893 3.0 



Baileys Bluff to 



Saddle Key 16,629 51,447 3.4 



Saddle Key to 



S. Mangrove Ft 71,530 343,643 3.5 



Waccasassa Bay 52,586 277,091 3.5 



Suwannee Sound 35,424 187,673 3.4 



Suwannee Sound to 



Deadman Bay 4,320 13,430 3.4 



Deadman Bay.. 2,698 15,335 3.4 



Deadman Bay to 



St. Marks River 8,927 17,854 3.4 



Apalachee Bay 61,322 264,830 3.3 



St. George Sound 87,776 1,005,195 2.6 



Apalachicola Bay 82,197 785,038 2.2 



St. Joseph Bay 43,872 622,387 1.4 



St. Andrew Sound 4,707 



East Bay (St. Andrew) 18,659 231,705 1.6 



St. Andrew Bay 26,209 405,512 1.5 



West Bay 17,576 136,135 1.5 



North Bay 6,676 55,189 1.6 



Choctawhatchee Bay... 86,295 1,321,106 0.6 



Santa Rosa Sound 24,560 217,862 1.4 



East Bay (Pensacola). 36,806 364,649 1.6 



Escambia Bay 24,085 190,084 1.5 



Pensacola Bay 40,581 796,769 ,.1.3 



Perdido Bay 25,396 217,724 -I ... 



Total 2,081,525 17,134,603 



— Source: U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (1969), Tide Tables. 

 "Diurnal range" is the difference in height between mean higher 

 high water and mean lower low water. The largest range was usee 

 if more than one range appeared for a given bay or segment of 

 coast. 



2/ 



— Hectares = acres x 0.4047. 



3/ 



— Cubic meters = acre-feet x 1,233. 



-^Meters = feet x 0.3048. 



— Unsurveyed. 



estuaries under consideration except that the 

 term "semi-enclosed" requires interpretation. 

 Pearcy defines the boundary between bays and 

 the territorial sea in geographical terms, and he 

 provides a rationale for determining the coastal 



boundary where the coast is highly indented and 

 where it has many islands and exposed reefs. 



For example, we used Pearcy's western bound- 

 ary of Florida Bay: the line joining East Cape 

 Sable and Key Vaca — precisely the 24 nautical 

 miles (44 km) that is accepted by geographers 

 as the maximum length of the closing line con- 

 necting the natural entrance of a large bay 

 (Pearcy, 1959, p. 965). We also used Pearcy's 

 method of drawing the coastal boundary between 

 headlands, islands, and even low tide elevations 

 such as rocks and oyster reefs along highly in- 

 dented parts of the coast such as that northward 

 from Cape Sable through the Ten Thousand 

 Islands, and northward from Anclote Key to 

 Lighthouse Point (Pearcy, 1959, p. 967-968; 

 Figs. 2 through 24 below) . The rocks and oyster 

 reefs between Anclote Key and Lighthouse Point 

 create many semi-enclosed areas that are dis- 

 tinctly estuarine in character (Figs. 14 through 

 18). Also, we set the boundary of Apalachee 

 Bay from the St. Marks lighthouse to Lighthouse 

 Point near Alligator Harbor because the water 

 area of a bay should exceed the total area con- 

 tained in a semicircle whose diameter is the line 

 connecting the natural entrances (Pearcy, 1959, 

 p. 965; Fig. 18). 



We defined the landward limit of estuaries as 

 the line of permanent fresh bottom water. Its 

 location was estimated by limited field obser- 

 vations, by noting the landward penetration of 

 salt marshes, by water quality data of streams 

 published by the U.S. Geological Survey, and by 

 published data (Dragovich and May, 1962; 

 Dragovich, Kelly, and Goodell, 1968; and 

 others) . 



Internal boundaries between parts of estuar- 

 ies were arbitrarily assigned except where we 

 were aware of historical precedent. 



Table 1 lists the area and volume of estuarine 

 study areas. Area was determined with a com- 

 pensating polar planimeter and the 1,200-Series 

 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Charts, scale 

 1:80,000. We calculated only the wet surface 

 area at mean high water because the difference 

 between high and low water areas on this coast 

 is slight. 



Volume was estimated by the method described 

 by Welch (1948) based on the formula for the 

 volume of the frustum of a cone. Two strata 

 were considered: surface to 6 ft (1.8 m) and 

 6 ft to the bottom. 



