Some of these decisions are EPA's. 216 of these 1,475 records carry a Clean Water Act cleanup plan EPA established rather than Florida. They are counted in every figure on this page, and each record page names which.
State water-quality picture · #7 by reported lake-type waterbodies
Florida lakes and reservoirs
Every figure on this page is computed from the assessment decisions Florida reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Clean Water Act sections 303(d) and 305(b) (reporting cycles 2024), plus daily water-level observations from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- 1,475
- Reported waterbodies
- 636
- Not supporting a use
- 217
- Fish use not supporting
- 6
- Gauged lakes
Florida in one line
1,475 lake-type waterbodies in Florida are reported to EPA ATTAINS across reporting cycles 2024: 636 assessed as not supporting at least one designated use, 367 fully supporting, and 472 without a definitive overall verdict. The most-listed impairment cause is Phosphorus, Total, on 241 waterbodies.
- 1,475
- reported waterbodies
- 636
- not supporting a use
- 367
- fully supporting
- 63%
- of definitive verdicts impaired
An unassessed waterbody is neither confirmed clean nor confirmed impaired; states assess on multi-year cycles.
Florida pairs a mid-pack inventory with a denser USGS gauge link-set
6 gauge-linked lakes put Florida in the upper third of states on that link count, against a mid-third register of 1,475 units.
Data updated 2026-08-17
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ATTAINS program, Florida reported 1,475 lake-type waterbodies in Florida in the August 2026 extract. See our methodology for filer attribution and multi-year reporting cycles.
How Florida's large inventory splits across overall status
Each of the 1,475 lake-type units reported by Florida lands in exactly one overall-status bucket. On a register this large, the bar is an inventory partition, the cause chart and national gauge below answer different questions.
Most-listed impairment causes in Florida
Waterbodies carrying each listed cause, most first
- Phosphorus, Total
Phosphorus, Total
241 waterbodies
- Chlorophyll-a
Chlorophyll-a
224 waterbodies
- Mercury in Fish Tissue
Mercury in Fish Tissue
213 waterbodies
- Nitrogen, Total
Nitrogen, Total
200 waterbodies
- Benthic Macroinvertebrates Bioassessments
Benthic Macroinvertebrates Bioassessments
191 waterbodies
What this shows Phosphorus, Total is the most-listed impairment cause in Florida, on 241 of the lake-type waterbodies reported there.
Computed share from EPA ATTAINS filed records, not an official EPA rating or safety grade.
Florida: 63% of ruled verdicts are not-supporting, against a national share of 53%, 1.2× the national rate.
Reporting practice
Florida's definitive-verdict share, by the numbers
Each reporting authority decides how much of the water it files to EPA it actually assesses in a cycle. That decision sets the denominator behind every count on this page.
Florida holds the 7th-largest reported lake-type inventory in the country, 1,475 assessment units, carrying a definitive verdict on 68% of it. The counts above describe the 1,003 units carrying a verdict, not all 1,475 reported. Florida has also retired 72 lake-type assessment units, superseded filings that are kept on the site but not counted here.
The states reporting at the nearest rates are Arizona (67.9%) and Connecticut (76.4%).
Assessing more of an inventory is a reporting choice, set by cycle length, monitoring budget and how finely a state splits its waters into units. It is not a measure of water quality, and it is why a raw count from one state does not sit beside a raw count from another. How assessment coverage varies.
Florida against every comparable state
Share of reported lake-type waterbodies carrying a definitive verdict
68% 23rd of 47 higher than 24 of 47 states
the 47 comparable states, by definitive-verdict share
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source EPA ATTAINS · Reporting cycles 1987–2026
Each bar counts states whose definitive-verdict share falls in that 10-point band. The 47 states shown are those reporting at least 25 lake-type units; a share off a smaller inventory is precision the data does not have.
By size
Largest assessed lakes in Florida
By assessed acreage as reported in ATTAINS. Acreage is the assessed unit's size, which can differ from a lake's full surface area.
| # | Waterbody | Assessed acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lake Okeechobee Not Supporting | 76,101 |
| 2 | Lake George Not Supporting | 43,576 |
| 3 | Lake Apopka Not Supporting | 30,909 |
| 4 | Lake Kissimmee Not Supporting | 30,671 |
| 5 | Lake Istokpoga Not Supporting | 26,673 |
| 6 | Lake Tohopekaliga Fully Supporting | 19,006 |
| 7 | Crescent Lake Not Supporting | 17,072 |
| 8 | Lake Harris Not Supporting | 15,631 |
| 9 | St Johns River Above Black Creek Not Supporting | 12,308 |
| 10 | East Lake Tohopekaliga Not Supporting | 12,141 |
| 11 | St Johns River Above Tocoi Not Supporting | 10,641 |
| 12 | Lake Griffin Not Supporting | 9,473 |
By cause count
Most-listed waterbodies in Florida
Waterbodies carrying the most listed impairment causes among the lake-type units reported by Florida.
| # | Waterbody | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bellows Lake (East Lake) Not Supporting | 6 |
| 1 | Lake Condel Not Supporting | 6 |
| 1 | Lake Monroe Not Supporting | 6 |
| 1 | Lake Okeechobee Not Supporting | 6 |
| 1 | Lake Tallavana Not Supporting | 6 |
| 6 | Bystre Lake Not Supporting | 5 |
| 6 | Eagle Lake Not Supporting | 5 |
| 6 | Florence Lake Not Supporting | 5 |
| 6 | Lake Apopka Not Supporting | 5 |
| 6 | Lake Bonnet Not Supporting | 5 |
Every row in this table ties with at least one other on the ranked value: 5 at 6 (rank 1), 5 at 5 (rank 6). Tied rows share a rank and are listed in no meaningful order; where a tie reaches the top the medal is shared, because nothing separates those rows.
Gauge network
Lakes with a daily level record in Florida
Lakes with a linked USGS gauge and a daily water-level record. Readings are daily-batch snapshots, not real-time.
- Lake Weohyakapka Not Supporting USGS gauge 02268400 Level record →
- Lake Rosalie Not Supporting USGS gauge 02268600 Level record →
- Lake Trafford Not Supporting USGS gauge 02291200 Level record →
- Ward Lake Fully Supporting USGS gauge 02300042 Level record →
- Lady Lake Fully Supporting USGS gauge 02312694 Level record →
- Lake Eckles Not Supporting USGS gauge 280311082282601 Level record →
States with similar inventory scale or impairment load
Two EPA ATTAINS peer sets outside Florida. The reporting-practice chart above stays on definitive-verdict share; these neighborhoods are cross-state nearest neighbors on register size and not-supporting counts.
Comparable register size
Nearest states by lake-type units on the register (1,475 here).
- Oregon · 1,431 units · 44 off
- Indiana · 1,588 units · 113 off
- Massachusetts · 1,191 units · 284 off
- Washington · 832 units · 643 off
Comparable not-supporting counts
Nearest states by units assessed not supporting a use (636 here). Inventory peers above are omitted.
- New Jersey · 583 not supporting · 53 off
- New York · 563 not supporting · 73 off
- Wisconsin · 493 not supporting · 143 off
- Michigan · 807 not supporting · 171 off
Peers are nearest-neighbor matches on EPA ATTAINS register size and not-supporting counts among states with at least 25 reported units. Impairment peers skip states already listed in the inventory column so the two link sets stay distinct.
Using this state picture
- Comparisons across states hold on shares, not counts: 68% of the inventory reported from Florida carries a definitive verdict, 23rd of 47 comparable states. National rankings
- Fish-consumption verdicts here are assessment decisions. Species-level meal advice comes from the state fish-advisory program. Consumption guide
- Browse every named Florida waterbody with a populated record. Browse waterbodies
PlainLakes renders state assessment decisions and federal gauge observations without modification.
Figures on this page are computed from the assessment decisions Florida reported to EPA's ATTAINS system and from USGS National Water Information System daily values, no number is typed in by an editor. State counts aggregate every lake-type assessment unit reported by Florida, including unnamed units that never receive their own page. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-17. Primary sources: EPA ATTAINS and USGS National Water Information System.