Survey Results

Many thanks to the 541 survey participants. Many of them (72%) requested alerts and publicly posted updates when new information on hydrilla becomes available. We responded to these needs with the launch of this website.

• 93% were familiar with hydrilla
• 34% viewed hydrilla as a problem

Use of water bodies:

Florida’s water bodies are visited for various reasons but mainly for recreation:

Types of water bodies visited:

Freshwater lakes are visited by the majority (51%) of survey participants, followed by rivers (17%), salt or brackish water bodies (15%), canals (11%), and ponds (7%).

Knowledge about hydrilla management:

56% respondents knew who was responsible for managing hydrilla in the water bodies they visited, and 51% knew what types of control tactics were applied. They indicated that:

• The use of chemical herbicides was predominant (98%)
• Mechanical harvesting was used less (27%)
• The use of biological control agents was very low (9%)

Information sources:

Easy access to new information on hydrilla control tactics is important for management of this invasive, exotic weed in Florida water bodies.

Many respondents (40%) use the internet when searching for hydrilla-related information and even more (70%) favor the internet as future information source.

Internet sources:

Besides general search engines, problem-specific websites were an important source of hydrilla-related information.