Case Study: South Florida Water Management District achieves faster, higher-accuracy wetland mapping for the Kissimmee River Restoration with Trimble

South Florida Water Management District - Customer Case Study

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), which manages water resources across 16 counties including the Everglades, leads the Kissimmee River Restoration Project (KRRP) to restore roughly 17,000 hectares of wetlands. Its Lakes and River Ecosystems Section (LRES) struggled to monitor dynamic vegetation across this vast area using paper maps, hard-copy imagery and consumer-grade GPS—methods that were slow, labor-intensive and limited in accuracy.

In 2015 LRES implemented Trimble R1 GNSS receivers paired with iPads running Esri’s Collector, enabling rapid, sub‑meter-accuracy ground-control points and onboard attribute capture. The new workflow yielded about 925 GCPs in a season, reduced helicopter flight times by nearly 50%, improved automated vegetation classification with eCognition, and streamlined data sharing—delivering faster, more accurate maps and a more efficient field program now being adopted across the district.

South Florida Water Management District

Lawrence Spencer

Staff Environmental Scientist