What will happen to the everglades

Peat is protected from certain microbes in low-oxygen wetland water, but it gradually decomposes, dries out and blows away when exposed to air.

This building at the Everglades Experiment Research Station was originally built at ground level, and stairs had to be extended downward as the soil withered away. Because limestone bedrock underlies the entire basin, there will be no soil left when the peat inevitably all disappears — which means Everglades agriculture will likely collapse, possibly with natural species close behind.

Then, to borrow a phrase from former Gov. Broward, it would be an especially abominable place. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads.

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To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger. Florida has huge swings in annual rainfall, which can vary by as much as 82 percent from average levels year to year , and water evaporates very rapidly during dry seasons. Before the 20th century, the Everglades managed these flows naturally. They were a network of vast marshes that expanded and contracted from wet to dry seasons, populated by plants and animals that evolved strategies for dealing with unpredictable depths.

Alligators created ponds to live in and crayfish burrowed into sediments during dry seasons. Sawgrass , which grows throughout the Everglades, can withstand drought, floods and fires and thrives in soils that contain pathetically few nutrients. As development spread across Florida, farmers, ranchers and urban dwellers sought to control floods and manage water supplies during droughts.

This infrastructure, which spans 16 counties, is operated today by the South Florida Water Management District. It also destroyed the St. Lucie and Fort Meyers estuaries by flooding them with unnatural pulses of fresh, and often polluted, water. In the Everglades it caused a 90 percent decline in populations of wading birds and repeated seagrass die-offs in Florida Bay and Charlotte Harbor, which in turn led to algae blooms and fish kills. Models increasingly confirm that it is possible to effectively rehydrate all of the Everglades , including the National Park.

But water coming out of Lake Okeechobee is polluted with phosphorus from fertilizer used on farms upstream. Plants in South Florida evolved in soils that were naturally low in phosphorus, so the Everglades is hypersensitive to it. Under natural conditions water flowing into the Everglades would contain parts per billion ppb of phosphorus.

Current levels range between and ppb. Adding so much phosphorus to the system can cause massive shifts from sawgrass plains to dense, oxygen-poor cattail monocultures, which outcompete sawgrass under higher nutrient conditions. Florida is now under federal court orders not to release water to the Everglades until phosphorus levels have been reduced close to natural concentrations. Removing a year supply of phosphorus from Lake Okeechobee waters will require many acres of land to store and treat water by filtering it through beds of aquatic plants and algal mats.

This system is partially constructed, but water cannot be released to the Everglades until it is finished, which may not happen for years or even decades, largely because of the cost. Restoration thus is effectively at a standstill.

These species were originally introduced to Florida as pets, food sources, ornamentals, or as biological controls. These species are able to outcompete native flora and fauna for food and space due to lack of population controls such as predators and disease.

These infestations of non-native species have adverse effects to native ecosystems. Since the early s, these species have been rapidly spreading throughout south Florida, changing the landscape and squeezing out native communities.

Efforts to combat this spread of introduced species are continuing, although they are extremely difficult to eradicate. Development pressures from agriculture, industry, and urban areas have destroyed more than half of the original Everglades. Urban development, industry, and agriculture pressures have destroyed more than half of the original Everglades. Ever-increasing population growth along with industry in south Florida has resulted in large metropolitan areas and rising pressures on the surrounding natural environments.