Wetlands are sponge like:
They hold onto their water for a long time.
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| The chart above shows wetland water depth for five regions of the Big Cypress and Everglades ecosystems. The red arrow shows the current water depth, the dark gray arrow a month ago and the light gray arrow a year ago today. The dotted black line indicates the long-term average water level for mid January. |
Three months into the dry season and the peat habitats are still saturated or moist. The driest part of the Everglades is Water Conservation Area 2 but even there water levels are still 0.5 ft deep center of the sloughs. The wettest, as usual, is Water Conservation Area 3. The average slough depth there is almost 2 ft deep. The marsh center of the domes in Big Cypress National Preserve are still about a foot deep. That means natural fire breaks are flooded …
And the fire water balance is in check.
