Econfina Creek

Econfina Creek is a small river in the middle Florida Panhandle. It flows through hilly country, and has sections of whitewater rapids. Much of its flow comes from springs. The river ends at Deer Point Lake, a reservoir that provides the freshwater supply for Panama City and much of Bay County.

The name "Econfina" derives from the Creek ekana, which means "earthy", and feno, which means "bridge" or "footlog", referring to a natural bridge that crossed the river about 15 miles upstream form its mouth until it collapsed in the 19th century. The Penscola - St. Augustine road (the Bellamy Road) built in the 1820s crossed this natural bridge.

Course

Econfina Creek arises in the southwest corner of Jackson County, flows into Bay County, thence into Washington County, and returns to Bay County to end in Deer Point Lake. Deer Point Lake is a reservoir that empties directly into North Bay, an arm of St. Andrews Bay. Econfina Creek is 26 miles (42 km) long and has a watershed of 275 square miles (710 km²).

Florida

Florida ⁱ/ˈflɒrɪdə/ (Spanish for "flowery land") is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida and the country of Cuba. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the United States. Jacksonville is the most populous city in Florida, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Miami metropolitan area is the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Tallahassee is the state capital.

A peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida, it has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, approximately 1,350 miles (2,170 km), and is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south. The American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park.

Water resource management

Water resource management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and managing the optimum use of water resources. It is a sub-set of water cycle management. Ideally, water resource management planning has regard to all the competing demands for water and seeks to allocate water on an equitable basis to satisfy all uses and demands. As with other resource management, this is rarely possible in practice.

Water resources

Water is an essential resource for all life on the planet. Of the water resources on Earth only three percent of it is fresh and two-thirds of the freshwater is locked up in ice caps and glaciers. Of the remaining one percent, a fifth is in remote, inaccessible areas and much seasonal rainfall in monsoonal deluges and floods cannot easily be used. At present only about 0.08 percent of all the world’s fresh water is exploited by mankind in ever increasing demand for sanitation, drinking, manufacturing, leisure and agriculture.

Much efforts in water resource management is directed at optimising the use of water and in minimising the environmental impact of water use on the natural environment.

Apalachicola River

The Apalachicola River /æpəlætʃᵻˈkoʊlə/ is a river, approximately 112 mi (180 km) long in the State of Florida. This river's large watershed, known as the ACF River Basin for short, drains an area of approximately 19,500 square miles (50,505 km²) into the Gulf of Mexico. The distance to its farthest headstream in northeast Georgia is approximately 500 miles (800 km). Its name comes from the Apalachicola tribe, which used to live along the river.

It is formed on the state line between Florida and Georgia, near the town of Chattahoochee, Florida, approximately 60 miles (97 km) northeast of Panama City, by the confluence of the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers. The actual confluence is submerged in the Lake Seminole reservoir formed by the Jim Woodruff Dam. It flows generally south through the forests of the Florida Panhandle, past Bristol. In northern Gulf County, it receives the Chipola River from the west. It flows into Apalachicola Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, at Apalachicola. The lower 30 mi (48 km) of the river is surrounded by extensive swamps and wetlands except at the coast.