South Florida’s vast Everglades ecosystem extends over 5,000,000 ha (12,400,000 acres). The region, which includes the Everglades and Biscayne Bay national parks and Big Cypress National Preserve, is home to many threatened and endangered bird, mammal, reptile, and plant species, including the Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) and the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris). The 400,000 ha (988,000 acre) subtropical wetland area for which the region is best known has been called a “river of grass” because a thin sheet of water flows constantly through it, allowing tall water-tolerant grasses to grow.

A hundred years of rapid human population growth, and the resulting need for water and farmland, have had a dramatic impact on the region. Flood control, dams, irrigation, and the need to provide fresh water to Floridians have led to a 30 percent decline in water flow through the Everglades. Much of the water that does flow through the region is polluted by phosphorus-rich fertilizer and waste from farms and other sources upstream. Cattails thrive on the input of phosphorus, choking out other native plants. The reduction in water flow and water quality is, by most accounts, destroying the Everglades. Can we save this natural system while still providing water to the people who need it?

The response of scientists and policy makers has been to treat the Everglades as a set of interacting systems and to manage the inputs and outputs of water and pollutants to those systems. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan of 2000 is a systems-based approach to the region’s problems. It covers 16 counties and 46,600 km² (11,500,000 acres) of South Florida. The plan is based on three key steps: increasing water flow into the Everglades, reducing pollutants coming in, and developing strategies for dealing with future problems.

The first step—increasing water flow—will counteract some of the effects of decades of drainage by local communities. Its goal is to provide enough water to support the Everglades’ aquatic and marsh organisms. The plan calls for restoring natural water flow as well as natural hydroperiods (seasonal increases and decreases in water flow). Its strategies include removal of over 390 km (240 miles) of inland levees, canals, and water control structures that have blocked this natural water movement.

Water conservation will also be a crucial part of reaching this goal. New water storage facilities and restored wetlands will capture and store water during rainy seasons for use during dry seasons, redirecting much of the 6.4 billion liters (1.7 billion gallons) of fresh water that currently flow to the ocean every day. About 80 percent of this fresh water will be redistributed back into the ecosystem via wetlands and aquifers. The remaining water will be used by cities and farms. The federal and state governments also hope to purchase nearby irrigated cropland and return it to a more natural state. In 2009, for example, the state of Florida purchased 29,000 ha (71,700 acres) of land from the United States Sugar Corporation, the first of a number of actions that will allow engineers to restore the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee into the Everglades. Florida is currently negotiating to purchase even more land from United States Sugar. In 2013, pilot projects for water storage in Lake Okeechobee were underway.

To achieve the second goal—reducing water pollution—local authorities will improve waste treatment facilities and place restrictions on the use of agricultural chemicals. Marshlands are particularly effective at absorbing nutrients and breaking down toxins. Landscape engineers have designed and built more than 21,000 ha (52,000 acres) of artificial marshes upstream of the Everglades to help clean water before it reaches Everglades National Park. Although not all of the region has seen water quality improvements, phosphorus concentrations in runoff from farms south of Lake Okeechobee are lower, meaning that fewer pollutants are reaching the Everglades.

The third goal—to plan for addressing future problems—requires an adaptive management plan: a strategy that provides flexibility so that managers can modify it as future changes occur. Adaptive management is an answer to scientific uncertainty. In a highly complex system such as the Everglades, any changes, however well intentioned, may have unexpected consequences. Management strategies must adapt to the actual results of the restoration plan as they occur. In addition, an adaptive management plan can be changed to meet new challenges as they come. One such challenge is global warming. As the climate warms, glaciers melt and sea levels rise, so much of the Everglades could be inundated by seawater, which would destroy freshwater habitat. Adaptive management essentially means paying attention to what works and adjusting methods accordingly. The Everglades restoration plan will be adjusted along the way to take the results of ongoing observations into account, and it has put formal mechanisms in place to ensure that this will occur.

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The Everglades plan has its critics. Some people are concerned that control of water flow and pollution will restrict the use of private property and affect economic development, possibly even harming the local economy. Yet other critics fear that the restoration project is underfunded or moving too slowly, and that current farming practices in the region are inconsistent with the goal of restoration.

In spite of its critics, the Everglades restoration plan is, historically speaking, a milestone project, not least because it is based on the concept that the environment is made up of interacting systems.

Critical Thinking Questions

References

Kiker, C., W. Milon, and A. Hodges. 2001. South Florida: The reality of change and the prospects for sustainability. Adaptive learning for science-based policy: The Everglades restoration. Ecological Economics 37:403–416.

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) Website. http://www.evergladesrestoration.gov/. Accessed 25 September 2013.