![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sunfish-copy-1.jpg\")
A photo of the SunFish Underwater Autonomous Vehicle taken at Jackson Blue Springs. (Photo courtesy Woodville Karst Plain Project.)\t\t<\/p>\n\t\tA photo of the SunFish Underwater Autonomous Vehicle taken at Jackson Blue Springs. (Photo courtesy Woodville Karst Plain Project.)\t\t<\/p>\n
A Florida State University researcher has earned a major grant to research local waterways that affect the everyday lives of Tallahassee residents.<\/p>\n
Ming Ye, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science<\/a>, has been awarded more than $2.5 million from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to research groundwater sources in the Wakulla Springs basin and map the basin\u2019s underwater caves, some of which have never been explored.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of Florida\u2019s springs are facing critical issues: water level is dropping, amount of flow is decreasing, and water quality is becoming worse,\u201d said Ye, who is also affiliated with the Department of Scientific Computing<\/a>. \u201cThe funding of this project gives us a chance to finally go subsurface to understand both the quantity and quality of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n Wakulla Springs, just a 30-minute drive from FSU\u2019s Tallahassee campus, is a natural exit point for the groundwater of the Floridian aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in the world, which provides drinking water to nearly 10 million people. The basin comprises a series of caves, conduits and sinkholes that lead into Wakulla Springs, which was named an International Geological Heritage Site in 2024.<\/p>\n By testing water at the springs and mapping the cave systems that lead into it, researchers will better understand how our water is affected by the geological makeup of the caves it passes through and how it\u2019s affected by various other environmental factors, from rising sea levels to pollution.<\/p>\n Ye will partner with the University of South Florida, a cave diving team of the Woodville Karst Plain Project, and SunFish, a Texas-based underwater field services company to train its new technology, the Underwater Autonomous Vehicle, in mapping cave systems beneath Wakulla Springs. While in the cave systems, divers will accompany the UAV \u2014 a small, drone-like machine \u2014 and \u201cteach\u201d it how to map the caves by guiding it through passages so the machine can work independently in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cMing is an expert in hydrogeology and using computational approaches to model groundwater transport, which helps him study fluid transport beneath the ground here in Florida,\u201d said Michael Stukel, chair of the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science and a professor of oceanography and environmental science. \u201cHe\u2019s a collaborative and interdisciplinary scientist and teacher whose work builds bridges across different curricular groups within EOAS.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida is home to the highest concentration of springs in the world \u2014 over 1,000 throughout the state \u2014 which are an essential part of the ecosystem. Methods like dye tracing have long been used to map how water moves through the underwater cave system, and taking water samples has provided insights into the chemical makeup of the water.<\/p>\n While divers have charted some of the caves, parts of the basin remain unmapped and unsampled because they\u2019re too narrow or dangerous for humans to reach. The UAV can access these dangerous caves, taking water samples from more areas to provide a comprehensive picture of how different geological compositions in the cave system affect the water that\u2019s eventually consumed and used in our daily lives.<\/p>\n \u201cThis area was brought to my attention on day one of my FSU career because it had a worldwide reputation for how difficult it was to map,\u201d said Ye, who began studying Wakulla Springs when he joined FSU\u2019s faculty in Spring 2007. \u201cThere are still a lot of research questions regarding these water sources.\u201d<\/p>\n The Wakulla Springs basin is the largest spring basin in Florida, and the cave system stretches approximately 25 miles. The UAV will map the size and shape of the caves while taking water samples to help researchers understand the chemical makeup of the water that will eventually make its way to Wakulla Springs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UAV is a new way to study these systems, and the technology can be expanded to the entire state and to other states with ongoing problems in their springs,\u201d Ye said. \u201cWakulla Springs is part of our heritage; I bring my daughter to swim in the spring, and I hope it can remain as healthy as possible so future generations can also enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ye received his doctorate in hydrology from the University of Arizona in 2002 before completing his post-doctoral research with the Hydrology Technical Group in Portland, Oregon, part of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He joined FSU\u2019s faculty in 2007 as part of the Department of Scientific Computing before transferring to EOAS in 2017. During his time at FSU, Ye has been honored with awards such as the Department of Energy\u2019s Early Career Award, FSU\u2019s Developing Scholar Award, and the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He was elected as a fellow of the Geological Society of America<\/a> in 2012.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Ye.jpg\")
Ming Ye, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science. (Devin Bittner\/FSU College of Arts and Sciences)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Springs.jpg\")
Wakulla Springs in the fall. (Photo by Ming Ye)<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Swimmer.jpg\")
The clarity of Wakulla Springs as seen from above. (Photo by Ming Ye)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photo of the SunFish Underwater Autonomous Vehicle taken at Jackson Blue Springs. (Photo courtesy Woodville Karst Plain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[56742,56747,80604,57787,232,234,233,14153],"class_list":["post-244400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-department-of-earth-ocean-and-atmospheric-science","tag-department-of-scientific-computing","tag-faculty","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-wakulla-springs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}