The Florida Everglades is one of the most diverse wetland ecosystems in the United States. These tropical wetlands span an area of more than seven hundred square miles in southern Florida. The term Everglade means river of grass. The system starts in central Florida near Orlando and travels southwest to the tip of Florida. The Everglades has a wet season and a dry season which causes a great change in hydrology.
Over the past 100 years the Louisiana coastline has suffered greatly from biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic factors. The abiotic factors include things such as hurricanes or overnutrition that influence the surrounding biota. The biotic factors that contribute to coastal erosion are things like the immigration invasive species and the emigration or extinction of local flora and fauna that help preserve the wetlands. Additionally, there are anthropogenic factors such as pollution that can have strong negative influences on the abiotic and biotic factors of the wetlands. Each one of these factors cause ecological disturbances to the wetlands at a frequency and intensity that is unmanageable for the local flora and fauna.
As a result of public funding and demand, the Everglades Drainage District (EDD) of 1907 was formed by Governor William Jennings to institute a design strategy to combat the overwhelming drainage. The Everglades Drainage District received its income as a result of its ability to tax, and over a period of the next twenty years built drainage and flood control structures that laid the groundwork for the major aspects of the existing drainage scheme. The state then marketed thousands of lots of land to companies which were then sold to individuals in hopes that southern Florida would prosper to become a plentiful agricultural region. The total volume of land owners rose dramatically from just 12 owners in 1909 to around 15,000 owners just three years later because of the advertised, exaggerated farming prospective. Landowners flooded into Florida, paying inflated land prices, to own a piece of the potential agricultural utopia that they had been advertised, yet when the land turned out to be less abundant and the drainage issues persisted the housing markets took a big hit.
Louisiana is responsible for a major part of our nation’s oil and gas production, shipping commerce, fisheries industry, fur harvesting, and oyster production, accounting for over 55,000 jobs and billions of dollars in revenues. Additionally, wetlands are wonderful recreational resources and are part of Louisiana’s growing ecotourism business (http://www.lacoast.gov/new/About/Default.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter). The effects of erosion and loss of marsh land in the Southern United States has devastating consequences to all of these benefits, both local and national. The loss of land can mostly be attributed to subsidence, erosion, and severe weather events. The USGS reports that a total of 118 square miles of land has been transformed to new water areas in a 9,742 square mile area from the Chandeleur Islands to the Atchafalaya River.
They then attach to various kinds of sea grasses on the ocean floor and coat them as well. Individual chambers combine together to form rock-like structures. Over thousands of years, when South Florida was completely submerged, a vast amount of this limestone combined with other ocean sediments and was laid down over the area now covered by the Everglades. Prior to the draining activities of humans and its use as an agricultural area, the Everglades was flooded about nine to eleven months of the year. It also lost only about 0.03 inches of soil per year.
Like many other natural resources, we have come to realize what importance they have after many millions of acres of wetlands have been destroyed; much too late. Restoring wetlands is just the beginning of the process of patching up the environment. "Natural resources cannot be managed as individual things, but as whole complete ecosystems whose plants and animal and human components are functionally interwined. (Rebuffoni, DNR Picks 3 B3)
The county's residents in 2000 was 35,910 and the number inhabitants is projected to reach as high as 45,273 by the year of 2015. According to the county population, 70.7 percent are white, 5.3 percent are black, 1 percent are Native Americans, 0.6 percent are Asians, 13 percent are Hispanic, and 9.4 percent are mixed races or other. Okeechobee County is perhaps one the most important counties in Florida. It is mostly known for Lake Okeechobee, but is serves other purposes also. It strengthens Florida's tourism industry, and leads the state in beef and dairy production.
Most importantly, I intend to show the ban has made an overall improvement on Florida's marine environment. Over the past 100 years, Florida has been known for having some of the best recreational fishing as well as marine environments. Locals and tourists alike could pick any given day to spend on the water and return with a wide variety of game fish. Unfortunately, over the past decade this trend has been on the decline. The cause of this decrease in the population of Florida's marine environment as well as in other parts of the world, is the indiscriminate use of the monofilament fishing net (par.2).
This spring, record breaking floodwaters along the Mississippi River caused massive damage in nine states, totaling over $25 billion dollars in damage (Watts, 2011). In most areas the floodwaters have receded, however there is concern that even a little rain could cause more flooding due to the already saturated land. As cities and towns are beginning the restoration process, one thing caused by the flooding waters cannot be restored. Pollutants’ such as nitrogen from fertilizer, due to this area being primarily composed of farming land, is making its way toward the Gulf of Mexico. Every year pollutants traveling in the Mississippi River enter the Gulf and contribute to the Coastal Dead Zone; however, this year the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to be the largest on record (University of Michigan, 2011; NOAA, 2011).
Despite the differences of urbanization and wildlife, major cities and the ecosystem of the Everglades thrive and fuse together to form the diversely changing landscape of the modern Everglades. The Everglades may also be known as the river of grass because of its 80.5 kilometer (50 miles) wide girth and 161 kilometer (100 miles) long span, with the source of its freshwater coming from Lake Okeechobee just to the north (Tramontana and Johnson 1-2). The Everglades then continues to flow through the southernmost sandbars, mangrove islands, and the Florida Keys before emptying into the Florida Bay. This path creates a mix of saltwater, brackish, and fresh waterways that comprise the marshes and swamplands of this unique environment (Tramontana and Johnson 1-2). Transitions from wet and dry climates are the only seasonal ch... ... middle of paper ... ...he Everglades National Park - Alligators, Fauna and More - A Fantastic Day Trip From Orlando!