Florida Environment: The Statewide Guides

Florida water is managed regionally by five water management districts, Northwest Florida, Suwannee River, St. Johns River, Southwest Florida and South Florida, under the general supervision of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Florida DEP).

DEP describes its role as administering water resources at the state level while the five districts handle them at the regional level (Florida DEP). The Florida water management districts guide explains how the five districts govern regional water in Florida, and the Florida water supply future guide covers how Florida plans for future drinking water demand.

DEP calls springs the window into the health of Florida groundwater. Florida is home to more first- and second-magnitude springs than any other state, and groundwater is the source of 90 percent of drinking water for Floridians, according to DEP (DEP Springs). In 2016 the Florida Legislature identified 30 Outstanding Florida Springs that require additional protections, and in June 2018 DEP adopted 13 restoration plans addressing all 24 nitrogen-impaired Outstanding Florida Springs (DEP Springs). The Florida springs network guide covers those springs, and the Apalachicola River watershed guide follows the Panhandle river system that drains into Apalachicola Bay.

Everglades National Park protects 1.5 million acres of Florida wetland, forest and marine habitat and was established in 1947 as the first national park created for its biodiversity, according to the National Park Service (National Park Service).

The National Park Service notes that the park also provides a major source of drinking water for local residents of South Florida (NPS). The Everglades ecosystem guide describes how the system works and what lives in it, and the Everglades restoration progress 2026 guide tracks the restoration work.

The Florida manatee has grown to a minimum of 8,350 animals and was moved from endangered to threatened in May 2017, while the Florida panther remains endangered with approximately 120 to 230 adults, per FWC (FWC manatees, FWC panthers).

FWC counts the manatee among Florida's keystone species, and the federal reclassification in 2017 followed population growth (FWC). The manatee conservation guide covers the species status, mortality events and the federal and state rules. Florida panthers have been documented across much of the peninsula and into Georgia, but the core population is found south of Lake Okeechobee (FWC panthers); the Florida panther recovery guide covers the recovery effort.

Section 259.1055 of the Florida Statutes, cited as the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act, was created by chapter 2021-181 and amended by chapters 2024-58 and 2025-201 (Florida Statutes). The statute defines the corridor as the conserved lands and opportunity areas that DEP places in priority one, two and three of the Florida Ecological Greenways Network, a periodically updated model developed to delineate large connected areas of statewide ecological significance. The Florida wildlife corridor guide maps that network, and the statewide scrub habitat guide and Florida pine flatwoods guide cover two Florida upland habitats.

Florida beaches held 100,951 loggerhead nests, 66,476 green turtle nests and 2,012 leatherback nests in the 2025 Statewide Nesting Beach Survey run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC 2025 nesting totals).

The 2025 FWC survey covered 1,322.6 kilometers of Florida beach, and the East Coast counties carried most of the nesting, with 83,044 of the loggerhead nests. Brevard County recorded 30,431 green turtle nests, the most of any Florida county, and Palm Beach County led for loggerheads with 25,614 nests (FWC). FWC also runs a separate Index Nesting Beach Survey on a standardized set of beaches, with totals from 1989 to 2025 that researchers use to determine nesting trends (FWC Sea Turtle Nesting).

The sea turtle nesting guide covers the Florida nesting season and the loggerhead beaches, and the Florida beach renourishment overview explains how Florida manages sand on its eroding beaches.

State and federal agencies track four Florida coastal measures: Karenia brevis red tide samples on the Gulf Coast, the 350 nautical mile coral reef, mangrove acreage moving north, and a sea level that NOAA measures rising 1.04 inches per decade at Key West since 1913.

In its October 9, 2026 status update, FWC found the red tide organism Karenia brevis at background to very low concentrations in 11 samples from and offshore of Florida's Gulf Coast, including Pinellas, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte and Collier counties, and set its next status report for Friday, October 16, 2026 (FWC red tide status). The Florida red tide history guide puts that reading in the context of earlier Florida blooms.

Florida's Coral Reef extends over 350 nautical miles from the Dry Tortugas to the St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County, and DEP estimates its tourism value at $1.1 billion a year, supporting about 71,000 jobs in South Florida (DEP Coral Reef Conservation Program). Florida has an estimated 600,000 acres of mangrove forest, and aerial images from 1984 to 2011 show the Florida Atlantic coast gained more than 3,000 acres, all of it north of Palm Beach County, with the acreage between Cape Canaveral and St. Augustine doubling as fewer winter cold snaps let mangroves expand north (DEP mangroves). The Florida coral reef tract guide and the mangrove coasts guide go deeper on each, and the Indian River Lagoon system guide covers the Atlantic coast estuary behind Florida's Atlantic barrier islands.

NOAA's long-term tide gauges show relative sea level rising at all four of these Florida gauges: 1.04 inches per decade at Key West since 1913, 1.23 inches at St. Petersburg since 1947, 1.07 inches at Pensacola since 1923 and 0.91 inches at Fernandina Beach since 1897, each trend running through December 2025 (NOAA Tides and Currents).

The Florida sea level rise 2026 guide, the Florida climate change projections 2050 guide and the Florida coastal resilience 2026 guide cover the projections and the state programs built on these Florida measurements.

The Florida environment section has 20 statewide guides, grouped below by the question each one answers, from water supply and springs to wildlife, sea turtles and the changing Florida coast.

Town and county pages carry the local side of these Florida topics, such as the Indian River Lagoon pages for Sebastian and Vero Beach, while these statewide guides explain the systems that cross county lines.