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...