USGS1980
In 1960, floods caused extensive damage to agribusiness in Jumper Creek Canal basin. In 1962, a plan was developed for a proposed project to reduce the threat of floods. In 1976, a study of the hydrology of the basin was proposed to help evaluate this plan and to serve as a basis for its modification; the study was conducted from October 1976 through September 1977. Jumper Creek Canal drains a basin of 83 square miles in which the average yearly rainfall is about 53 inches. Average runoff from the upper 40 square miles of the basin is estimated to be about 30 cubic feet per second or 10 inches per year. Evapotranspiration is estimated to be about 37 inches per year. Variation in runoff from Jumper Creek Canal is much less than that from most other basins in west-central Florida because of large storage capacity in the basin both on the surface and in the ground. Limestone in Jumper Creek Canal basin is covered by a veneer of sand and clays which ranges in thickness from 0 to 10 feet. The study indicates that most of the base flow in the canal enters the canal east of the site of the proposed water-control structure number 5 and that the discharge in the canal at State Highway 475 has been about the same relative to rainfall in the basin since 1963 whether the base flow was derived entirely from natural inseepage or partly from mine pumpage. The study shows that implementation of the proposed project will result in (1) a decrease in surface outflow, (2) an increase in subsurface outflow, (3) a rise in the potentiometric surface of the Floridan aquifer near the canal and (4) a tendency to increase evapotranspiration and the magnitude of floods in the basin.