Efforts to Restore the Everglades

 Recommendation Report: Efforts to restore the Everglades

Emanuela Redini

Barry University

Abstract

The Everglades is a vast subtropical wetland that dominates the landscape of south Florida and is widely recognized as an ecosystem of great ecological importance . As a result of anthropogenic disturbances over the past 100 years, the biotic integrity of the entire Everglades has been degraded dramatically. To protect this valuable resource, the political committee of Dade County has developed a restoration strategy that addresses controlling excess nutrient loading and reestablishment of a more natural hydrology. These efforts include constructing 17,000 ha of treatment wetlands, called the Stormwater Treatment Areas, where the water will be treated before it will be discharged into the Evereglades. With such a large-scale restoration process on the way, the overwhelming task of determining how and when to implement the numerous aspects of the restoration plan have become a challenge to all those working toward the flow of the water. The most challenging issues were characterizing stormwater inflows and phosphorus loads, determining appropriate nutrient removal performance characteristics, and estimating hydraulic design parameters relating to densely vegetated systems.

This paper sets the recommendations of the political committee of Dade County on how the state should proceed with its efforts to restore the Everglades and achieving its long-term water quality goals .

Efforts to restore the everglades

The restoration of the Everglades is an ongoing effort to remedy the damages inflicted on the environment of southern Florida during the 20th century .The National Academy of Sciences in its most recent biennial report to Congress has declared that the restoration of the Everglades is not happening fast enough . After all the destructive projects made to this big cypress swamp, its urgent restoration is a priority for the natural environment of South Florida and it must also be protected because, besides its natural beauty and unique ecosystem, it is a primary source of the region’s water. In order to do the restoration, the federal government and the State of Florida must take immediate action. In order to restore the Everglades, we must reconnect the flow of freshwater from Lake Okeechobee to this vast oligotrophic wetland dominated by sawgrass ridges, sloughs and tree islands. This hydrologic reconnection will have the benefits of reducing

the polluted water discharged to the Caloosahatchee River and   St.Lucio River   Estuaries  and it will provide freshwater  flow to habitats across the River of  Grass and important estuaries of the south as Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay. Restoring this flow to the Everglades will improve South    Florida’s water  supply for the future.[pic 1]

 Figure n.1 shows the geographic area of the Everglades (LoSchiavo,    2013)

Methods

In fewer than one hundred years South Florida has witnessed profound environmental change . Half of the historic Everglades have been lost and the remaining natural areas are highly fragmented. Fragmentation started over a century ago because of the enormous population growth in South Florida and because of several government polices that were directed toward draining large parts of the wetlands. In the 1920’s, hundreds of miles of drainage canals had been built as well as a two lane road, the Tamiami Trail, and the Alligator Alley interstate highway were completed across the Everglades. Finally, the rapid growth of the agriculture had modified drastically the Everglades since the last century with several agricultural practices.