FLINT RIVER TOPICS

• Main Topics
  • Home
  • The Flint River Basin
  • Hydrology and Steam Ecology
  • Species

• Publications
  • Fact Sheet 2006-3441

• Contacts
  • Project team

Water Availability for Ecological Needs in the Upper Flint River Basin, Georgia

The upper Flint River contains numerous shoal areas that provide habitat for endangered species (Jonathan Kennen, USGS).

The Flint River Science Thrust project of the U.S. Geological Survey is part of a federally funded program to address key national science priorities including landslides/debris flows, fire science, integrated landscape monitoring, and water availability. The purpose of the project is to advance the science needed to specify the hydrologic conditions necessary to support flowing-water ecosystems. This information is critical for management of water resources. Specific project goals include:

• Develop conceptual models that relate hydrology, geomorphology, and water quality to biological management objectives.
• Evaluate and determine the major factors driving the conceptual models and determine additional data needs.
• Use the upper Flint River Basin to demonstrate a spatially explicit predictive model for evaluating water-supply development options that links watershed conditions to biological management objectives.
• Identify research and monitoring needed to address critical uncertainties and data gaps determined during model development.

 The Upper Flint River Basin

The Flint River begins beneath Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport on the south side of Atlanta and flows southward across the Georgia Piedmont and Coastal Plain to its junction with the Chattahoochee River, later forming the Apalachicola River. The upper Flint River Basin has a drainage area of about 2,630  square miles. Land use in the basin, which includes parts of the upper Coastal Plain, consists of about 57  percent forest, 17  percent agriculture, and 12  percent urban, with most of the urban land concentrated in the extreme northern part of the basin (Georgia Land Use Trends, 1998).

Population growth in the six-county Upper Flint Water Supply Management Area (UFWSMA, shown below) has increased more than 200 percent since 1970, from 133,470 to 302,714 during 2000 (CH2MHill, 2003). Predictions are that more than 550,000 persons will live in the six-county UFWSMA by 2030.