Website

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/bigbend/

Region(s)

NW

Summary

Continuous water quality data are collected at ten water quality stations (Station ID's: BBSBC, BBSWT, BBSSK, BBSDB, BBSSW, BBSCR, BBSKB, BBSHS, BBSCH, BBSST) located within the St. Martins Marsh and Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserves in 15-minute intervals for eight parameters using protocols established by the National Estuarine Research Reserve's System-Wide Monitoring Program. As of January 2019, only two sites are currently in operation, BBSCH and BBSST. AP continuous WQ protocols and metadata: https://www.floridaapdata.org/

Parameters

water temperature (°C), specific conductivity (mS/cm), salinity (psu), dissolved oxygen (%), dissolved oxygen (mg/L), depth (m), pH, turbidity (NTU-6600, FNU-EXO), and chlorophyll data available upon request (RFU and ug/L at BBSST only)

Notes

Application

To measure changes in estuarine waters that help provide a better understanding of how human activities and natural events can affect coastal resources and to provide valuable data on the short-term variability and long-term changes in estuaries to researchers, natural resource managers and other coastal decision-makers.

Publications

presentations, meetings, reports, and online

Start

2004

End

Current

Frequency

Continuous

Method

15-minute data collections at fixed stations using YSI 6600 data sondes with a recent transition to EXO2's and EXO3's in 2019 and 2020

Discontinuity

Sporadic discontinuity of historical data

Data Location

Aquatic Preserve Data Portal - https://www.floridaapdata.org/

Data Format

.csv (yearly files)
https://www.floridaapdata.org/

Habitats

Water Column

SEACAR Citation

Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection (RCP), Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserves. (2025). Big Bend Seagrasses Aquatic Preserves Continuous Water Quality Monitoring. Updated 02/12/2026. Distributed by: SEACAR Data Discovery Interface, Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. https://data.florida-seacar.org/programs/details/471

Alternative Citation

indicates priority attributes