Florida H2OSAV Insights: Home Water Use in Osceola County

This fact sheet provides current, basic information about residential water use in Osceola County, Florida. Written by Nick Taylor, Kaitlin Robb Price, Bradley Spatz, Parker Johnson, and Pierce Jones, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, November 2021.

An Evaluation of Effects of the Advancement Via Individual Determination (Avid) Program in Osceola County, Florida

The School District of Osceola County, Florida, invests heavily in the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, and as such, an evaluation of effects was conducted with a sample of 10 middle schools (12,325 students) and 7 high schools (18,886 students). Propensity matching was used to determine practical effects. Providing schoolwide AVID was correlated with higher school grades in the Florida accountability system, and students in the elective were found to have statistically significantly higher GPAs, higher learning gains scores, greater enrollment in acceleration, and a higher likelihood of receiving college scholarships.

Latinization, Landscapes, and Soundscapes

Chapter 2 traces the long-term impact of Latino migration and the Latinization of communities. The chapter highlights the economic, cultural, and political influence of these newcomers by focusing on both the landscape and soundscape in the suburbs of Osceola County. The different ways that the demographic changes were talked about, understood, and sometimes contested are documented. Chapter 2 reveals how transformations to the landscape and soundscape and language ideologies impact racial identities, migrant incorporation, and the response to Latino migrants. These ideas or language ideologies reveal how linguistic practices are racialized along with other practices, physical characteristics, and signifiers of identity. Thus, this chapter begins to grapple with the complexity of race relations in the region by drawing attention to the circulation of racial anger, feelings of white exclusion, and the move to confine linguistic differences to the home.

Buenaventura Lakes

Chapter 1 sets the scene in Osceola County, Florida. The chapter goes back to the 1970s, to the formation of an international consortium of real estate developers—“the Mexican Millionaires”—who used real estate marketing strategies and the visceral imagery of luxurious country club living to attract Puerto Ricans to the Buenaventura Lakes suburb. This historical chapter shows how instrumental these corporate partners were in fostering an awareness of Greater Orlando’s real estate opportunities on the island of Puerto Rico and in the Puerto Rican concentrated communities of New York and Chicago, and directing the flow of mainland and island Puerto Ricans towards Greater Orlando instead of the traditional gateway cities. As a result, they created one of the largest Puerto Rican-concentrated suburbs in Central Florida.

Social Class Distinctions and the Latino Elite

Chapter 4 goes beyond Osceola County and the Buenaventura Lakes suburb to document the formation of a “Latino elite,” a community of professionals and entrepreneurs brought together by business networking organizations for Latinos. The chapter focuses on the elite spaces that are now being constructed, and these are the spaces of social clubs, golf courses, and business networking groups where the formation of a Latino upper class is now occurring. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the ethnographic vignettes throughout the chapter show how Puerto Ricans and other Latinos formulate, perform, and embody their social class positions, and the ways they perpetuate these differences through lifestyle choices and by articulating class based distinctions. Through this examination the reader will see how the everyday lives of individuals are shaped by their class positions and the distinctions that are made, consciously and unconsciously, thereby fostering a polarized Latino population. Ultimately, this chapter reveals how the exclusivity and elitism of the Latino upper class contrasts with the poverty, struggles, and criminalization experienced by the low-skilled, service sector labor force.

Residential Irrigation Water Costs in Osceola County and Orange County, Florida

Interest in understanding water use and irrigation costs has risen in recent years. This case study is a 5-page evaluation of water use and associated costs for residential landscape irrigation in Osceola County and Orange County, Florida. Homeowners in central Florida can use the results to assess their water consumption and bills in relation to similar homes in the area. Written by Nick Taylor, Tricia Kyzar, Pierce Jones, and Kaitlin O. Robb Price, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, December 2019.https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ae536

First Report of the Association of Myriogenospora atramentosa with the Plant Genus Hemarthria

Myriogenospora atramentosa is an epibiont fungus that produces black, linear stromata on the leaves of warm-season grasses including Paspalum and Andropogon. Because M. atramentosa is in the family Clavicipitaceae containing several ergot alkaloid-producing fungi, its mycotoxin production and the potential risk to cattle health are of concern. Limpograss (Hemarthria altissima) is a warm-season perennial grass that plays a key role in the cattle industry of the southeastern United States. Limpograss plants with tangletop signs and symptoms were collected in October 2018 from Osceola County, Florida, U.S.A. M. atramentosa was confirmed. M. atramentosa is reported to be associated with the plant genus Hemarthria for the first time, through morphological and molecular investigations. Because of the increasing human usage, animal consumption, and global distribution of H. altissima, understanding its codistribution with M. atramentosa and the potential mycotoxin content is critical to protect plants and animals.

Water balance between surface water and groundwater in the withdrawal process: a case study of the Osceola watershed

A generalized hierarchical approach with a water balance function is introduced to simulate stream-flow depletion in a complex groundwater system in Osceola County. The groundwater flow system at the site, because of the complex interaction between ambient streams, exhibits a unique multi-scale pattern that proves to be difficult to simulate using standard modelling tools. The hierarchical modelling system was first calibrated to water level measurements collected from monitoring wells. Afterwards, systematic hierarchical simulations and integrated water budget analyses were performed to evaluate the adverse resource impact of the ongoing water withdrawal. The multi-scale process-based results from this generic hierarchical modelling system provided critical storage and flux information that can be used to comprehensively assess the pros and cons of water resource development and management, such as artificial water withdrawal.