View of a Slough, painting by Everglades artist Jo-Ann Sanborn

View of a Slough, 2012, Jo-Ann Sanborn

acrylic on canvas, 20x24, Sold

A slough (pronounced "slew" or "sloo") is a deep water estuary in the Everglades. The wet season renews the dry Everglades prairies and fills the deep sloughs with rainwater.  

The sloughs stay wet for most of the year providing a water for plants and animals as the prairies dry in the wet season. Because of the gently slope of the land south of Lake Okeechobee, the water will work it's way slowly to the south and into the gulf.

The slow movement of large amounts of shallow water, based on a ridge and slough design, is important to a multitude of Everglade ecosystems.  Yet Everglades systems have often been altered detrimentally by humans, changing historic patterns and affecting life in the glades with little public study or outcry. 

You can learn more about the importance of the ridge and flow system of Everglades water movement here.