Application of a cave inventory system to stimulate development of management strategies: the case of west-central Florida, USA.

The active management of air-filled cave systems is virtually non-existent within the karst landscape of west-central Florida. As in every karst landscape, caves are important because they contain a wide variety of resources (e.g., biota, speleothems) and can act as direct connections between surface and subsurface hydrological processes, potentially exacerbating the pollution of groundwater. Before sound management policies can be drafted, implemented, and enforced, stakeholders must first have knowledge of the management requirements of each cave. However, there is an informational disconnect between researchers, stakeholders, and the recreational caving community. Here, we present a cave inventory system that simplifies the dissemination of resource knowledge to stakeholders so that cave management and protection policies can be drafted and implemented at the state and local level. We inventoried 36 caves in west-central Florida, located on both public and private land, and analyzed cave resource data to provide insights on cave sensitivity and disturbance using two standardized indices. The data revealed that both public and private caves exhibit a wide range of sensitivity and disturbance, and before management strategies can be drafted, the ownership of each cave must be considered. Our inventory geodatabase serves as a link between researchers, landowners, and the public. To ensure the conservation and protection of caves, support from county or state government, combined with cave inventory data, is crucial in developing sound management policy.

[1]  D. Richards,et al.  Uranium-series Chronology and Environmental Applications of Speleothems , 2003 .

[2]  D. Ford.  CONDENSATION CORROSION IN CAVES ON CAYMAN BRAC AND ISLA DE MONA , 1998 .

[3]  H. Schwarcz,et al.  HOLOCENE CLIMATIC VARIATION RECORDED IN A SPELEOTHEM FROM MCFAIL'S CAVE, NEW YORK , 2004 .

[4]  J. Miller,et al.  Hydrogeologic framework of the Floridan aquifer system in Florida and in parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama , 1986 .

[5]  D. Ford,et al.  Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology , 2007 .

[6]  C. Lascu,et al.  CONDENSATION CORROSION IN MOVILE CAVE, ROMANIA , 1997 .

[7]  D. Culver,et al.  ESTIMATING SUBTERRANEAN SPECIES RICHNESS USING INTENSIVE SAMPLING AND RAREFACTION CURVES IN A HIGH DENSITY CAVE REGION IN WEST VIRGINIA , 2004 .

[8]  Á. Vallejos,et al.  Human impact in a tourist karstic cave (Aracena, Spain) , 1997 .

[9]  Leslie North.  Application and Refinement of the Karst Disturbance Index in West Central, Florida , 2007 .

[10]  S. Fleury.  Land Use Policy and Practice on Karst Terrains: Living on Limestone , 2009 .

[11]  Hai Cheng,et al.  Stalagmite evidence from Belize indicating significant droughts at the time of Preclassic Abandonment, the Maya Hiatus, and the Classic Maya collapse , 2007 .

[12]  Технология,et al.  National Climatic Data Center , 2011 .

[13]  R. Cooper,et al.  Heart rate measures in blind cave crayfish during environmental disturbances and social interactions. , 2000, Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part A, Molecular & integrative physiology.

[14]  Kaya Townsend,et al.  A Disturbance Index for Karst Environments , 2005, Environmental management.

[15]  Carol A. Hill,et al.  Cave Minerals of the World , 1976 .

[16]  W. A. White,et al.  The geomorphology of the Florida Peninsula , 1970 .

[17]  Mario Parise,et al.  Interregional comparison of karst disturbance: west-central Florida and southeast Italy. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[18]  V. Polyak,et al.  Variable intensity of teleconnections during the late Holocene in subtropical North America from an isotopic study of speleothem from Florida , 2007 .

[19]  P. Milanovic.  Special Issue: Cvijic Karst 2005: “Water Resources and Environmental Problems in Karst”, held in Belgrade and Kotor, Serbia and Montenegro, 14–19 September 2005 , 2006 .

[20]  Leslie North,et al.  Application of a Karst Disturbance Index in Hillsborough County, Florida , 2007, Environmental management.

[21]  Gonzalez,et al.  Climate and vegetation history of the midcontinent from 75 to 25 ka: A speleothem record from crevice cave, missouri, USA , 1998, Science.

[22]  Jonathan L. Bamber,et al.  Impact of model physics on estimating the surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet , 2007 .

[23]  David A. Pickett,et al.  A High-Resolution Record of Holocene Climate Change in Speleothem Calcite from Cold Water Cave, Northeast Iowa , 1992, Science.

[24]  L. Florea.  Architecture of Air-Filled Caves within the Karst of the Brooksville Ridge, West-Central Florida , 2006 .

[25]  David Gillieson,et al.  Guidelines for cave and karst protection , 1997 .

[26]  Richard A. Johnson,et al.  Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis , 1983 .

[27]  H. Legrand,et al.  Environmental and legal aspects of karst areas , 1997 .

[28]  B. Onac,et al.  Stable Isotopes as Environmental Indicators in Speleothems , 2002 .

[29]  J. Polk,et al.  Late Holocene environmental reconstruction using cave sediments from Belize , 2007, Quaternary Research.

[30]  Thomas M. Lera.  The Virginia Cave Protection Act: a review (1966–2009) , 2009 .

[31]  G. Harley.  A GIS-based inventory of terrestrial caves in West Central Florida: Implications on sensitivity, disturbance, ownership and management priority , 2007 .