The Tomoka River is a north-flowing

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

Volusia County Volusia County (, ) is located in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Florida, stretching between the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2020 census, the county was home to 553,543 people, an increase of 11.9% from the ...

Florida Florida is a U.S. state, state located in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia (U.S. state), Geo ...

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. It drains an area of about and has a length of .U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed April 18, 2011

Geography

The Tomoka rises in the forests of

between Port Orange and

Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, or simply Daytona, is a coastal resort-city in east-central Florida. Located on the eastern edge of Volusia County near the Atlantic coastline, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. Daytona Beach is approximately nort ...

at an elevation of . The river then flows north-northeast, passing through the cities of

and Ormond Beach until it empties into the Halifax River. Near its mouth the river passes through the Tomoka Marsh Aquatic Preserve and Tomoka State Park. It also runs next to the Ormond Beach Municipal Airport and Addison Blockhouse Historic State Park.

Manatee sanctuary

The river and several of its tributaries (Strickland, Thompson and Dodson Creek) are designated as a

manatee Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus ''Trichechus'') are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species ...

sanctuary. Other

threatened species Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of '' critical depens ...

that inhabit the river basin include the

wood stork The wood stork (''Mycteria americana'') is a large American wading bird in the family Ciconiidae (storks), the only member of the family to breed in North America. It was formerly called the "wood ibis", though it is not an ibis. It is found ...

and Atlantic salt marsh snake. The

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

can also be found in and around the river basin.

Paddling trail

There is a long designated paddling trail from the Riverbend Nature Park to the Tomoka State Park. This trail is unusual as it actually leads upstream from the put-in point, until the river becomes too narrow to continue, then turns around to continue to the end. The

Florida Department of Environmental Protection The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is the Florida government agency responsible for environmental protection. History By the mid-1960s, when the federal government was becoming increasingly involved in initiatives desi ...

recommends this paddling trail for beginners.

List of crossings

References

External links