Habitat Suitability Indices

The Habitat Suitability Indices (HSI) is a scoring model used to evaluate water management operations on plant and animal habitats. The model analyzes the responses of alligators, fish, birds, periphyton, ridge and slough landscape, and tree island habitats and "scores" the performance of a particular run, for different species, relative to their baseline conditions. The model scores from zero to one, with zero meaning undesirable impacts and one meaning more desirable impacts. For example, water levels and the number of days flooded at a certain level are important to habitats, but the seasonality and duration may have different impacts on each species.

Water managers, scientists and engineers may use the results from the model runs to adjust water management operations to achieve the greatest ecosystem restoration benefits. The HSI model was developed to use simulated output from the South Florida Water Management Model (SFWMM) and the Natural System Model (NSM).