Before you can manage a system you have to know what its characteristics are. In the case of an ecosystem that means knowing its current status and the threats that it may be facing. That means doing at least two things:
In the case of south Florida the boundaries of the system under consideration are essentially those of the South Florida Water Management District, but with a particular focus on the wetlands running south from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades. The habitat to be managed is categorized by vegetation type. Nine vegetation types are recognized (Figure 2).
The threats are manifold, and nearly all are related to human pressures. Interestingly, Harwell suggests that the explosive growth of human populations in south Florida has had relatively little direct impact on the ecosystem. Pine forests are an important exception, because they have been largely converted to residential use.
The largest impact has been the disruption of dynamic storage and sheetflow by large-scale agribusiness, primarily sugar cane, in areas just south of Lake Okeechobee. By changing the timing and extent of natural hydroperiods these activities have significantly altered the susceptibility of downstream communities to disturbance (fires and storms are especially important). Only half of the Everglades remain in a near-natural state.
Most of the food consumed in Miami is imported from places far removed from south Florida.1 Moreover, it appears that the system can supply enough water for both urban and agricultural needs without significant harm to natural ecosystems, provided that the system is managed to provide storage sufficient to capture water currently being sent via canals to the Atlantic or to the Gulf of Mexico.
