Everglades National Park, Florida, the United States: Life Sciences Essay

Fall 2020 ENV495: Site Inventory
Everglades Ecosystem in Florida
Target and Site Model:
Everglades National Park, Florida, the United States
There is a focus on the restoration, preservation, and protection of the water resources and species at Everglades in Florida. There are multispecies birds, animals, and plants that thrive in the natural Everglades landscape, especially when there is a normal water flow to the southern peninsular. Everglades National Park is important wetlands protected, but agricultural lands are agricultural lands, including the previously-farmed agricultural land. One of the issues is that there has been a reduction in the species population over time, and there has been a focus on farmland acre reduction plans as one of the restoration efforts. Despite the decline in the original Everglades, there is still a large number of native species. Thus, there is a need to consider the environmental advantages of restoration programs and economic costs.
The Everglades ecosystem and freshwater wetland have reduced gradually partly because there has been modified drainage, which reduced water storage, and this is a concern during dry years when some of the areas lack freshwater (Wiederholt et al., 2020). There are areas that excess regulatory discharges in extremely wet seasons and years wet years when in the past, the water would flow towards the Everglade. This has resulted in some areas being too wet or too dry, affecting the natural ecosystem. This is further complicated by human activities linked to agricultural activities, flood control, urban development, and increase in large areas with invasive species, soil loss, nutrient availability, and nutrient pollution (Gerlak & Heikkila, 2011) and (Wiederholt et al., 2020).
There are federal and state funding programs aimed at addressing the above-mentioned issues, and more incentives to private landowners in the area would make it easier to support the restoration project where there are coordinated efforts with little interference from the landowners. Authorized restoration projects and funding are essential to control the flow of fresh, uncontaminated water to the Everglades. Close monitoring of salinity levels is necessary to determine risks to environmental health and water quality in the everglade, where adequate funding supports risk assessment and monitoring efforts.
There is variation in the hydrologic tolerances in various areas highlighting the need to consider how hydrologic changes have occurred over time, and which areas have been more stable than others. One way to evaluate the hydrologic changes is by using hydrological models that compare the pre-drainage conditions and the current conditions (Saunders et al., 2015).
Additionally, there have been changes in the water levels, which have affected the ecosystem's hydrological pathways, which affect the water inputs and outputs. Changes in the water levels are linked to the sources, which in turn depends on environmental changes and water management programs. There are complex hydrological pathways in large wetland ecosystems like Everglades, and this is a challenge when implementing wetland restoration programs.
History and/or context of the site
The Everglades wetland ecosystem covers approximately 18,000 square miles (46,620 km²) from central Florida to the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys in the sub-tropical and tropical climatic zones of the southeastern US (Stainback et al., 2020). This area was also known for the flow of clean, freshwater, but beginning the 20th century, approximately 50% of this flow has best diverted or disrupted. Consequently, the Everglades has halved in size, which has resulted in the loss of 1.7 billion gallons of freshwater a day that flows into the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico (Stainback et al., 2020). Consequently, there has been declining water quality, saltwater intrusion, degradation of estuaries and bays, and loss in biodiversity in both plant and endangered animal species (Stainback et al., 2020) and (LoSchiavo et al., 2013).
Destruction of the original Everglades is partly linked to water use and modification infrastructure to influence water supplies in the subtropical environment. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) authorized by congress in 2000 focused on restoring the Everglades ecosystem, through reforming the water manipulation system (Stainback et al., 2020). Thus, there is a focus on meeting the growing population water-related needs in the restoration efforts while retaining water in the ecosystem and increasing the water storage capacity. One of the main reasons for altering the natural environment was to manage flood controls and water supply, where a drainage system was adopted at a time when the population in the region was increasing. There were unintended consequences that resulted in losing biodiversity and populations of species as there was environmental degradation.
Fig 1. The Greater Everglades ecosystem covers almost 18,000 square miles
Source: Stainback et al. 2020
Stressors and Site Opportunities
Everglades can be a habitat for threatened and endangered species such as the Florida panther and it is an important ecosystem for important plant species. The ecosystem further affects the quality of drinking water in the surrounding regions. Reduced freshwater flows have harmed the quality of water and the habitat quality as well as the reduced freshwater flow that affected coastal aquifers as lower flow resulted in decreased hydraulic pressure in these aquifers (LoSchiavo, et al., 2013). Monitoring ecosystem deterioration helps in restoration efforts so that the ecosystem allows the species to survive. Thus, restoring the water depths and the historic flow volumes will reduce the degradation rate and improve the habitat quality.
When prioritizing restoration programs and projects, there is a need to consider stressors that interact, and accounting for the different stressors...