Minimum Flows and Levels

Jones Edmunds staff has been involved with the development of Minimum Flows and Levels (MFL) throughout Florida for over a decade. We helped water management districts in Florida develop MFLs for lakes and systems requiring hydric soils characterization, and our staff has also been primary or second author on numerous MFL reports. We have been instrumental in the development of MFL for lakes, rivers, and springs and have studied temporal and spatial measures of habitat loss. We have experience with using GIS to develop DTMs from manually and remotely gathered topography data and the use DTMs in hydraulic model development and floodplain inundation analysis.

Jones Edmunds has also been active in evaluating MFL and environmental constraints as they apply to consumptive use permits. In particular Jones Edmunds has evaluated surface water MFL and their associated water budget and groundwater models to determine the applicability of constraints to proposed withdrawals. Our MFL expertise includes knowledge of soils, vegetation, wildlife, and hydrology impacts for lotic and lentic systems.

Jones Edmunds also has an in-depth understanding of harm analysis beyond MFL and the methods employed by various districts (e.g. Kinser-Minno Method, Stressed Lakes List). Jones Edmunds staff have published multiple papers on the development of MFL and collaborated on methodologies for instream flow protection internationally. We have provided MFL expertise to agencies and utilities. Our ecologists routinely apply advanced GIS analysis and use their in-depth knowledge of a water supply utility’s needs and concerns to move projects forward efficiently.