This project is focused on further developing, extending, implementing, and using a mathematical model to study the interaction between wetland sheet flows and dynamic forces in the transition zone between the southern Everglades and its coastal embayments. The model will be used to study and evaluate the combined response of hydroperiods in the wetlands and salinities in the mangrove ecotone to inflow alterations. The project effort will include 1) monitoring hydrologic processes and dynamic forces to develop an improved understanding of them individually and of their interaction, 2) translating this information and prior knowledge of processes gleaned from the SICS project into improved empirical expressions and mathematical equations to better represent the processes both individually and collectively, 3) transforming these expressions and their correlation to ecosystem properties into numerical algorithms, 4) integrating these algorithms into an existing numerical model framework, 5) implementing the model to the transition zone of the Everglades that encompasses the mangrove ecotone using collected data to define critical ecosystem properties such as land-surface elevations, vegetative characteristics, etc., 6) calibrating the model using time series of water-level and flow data collected at strategic intermediate internal points, 7) using the model to investigate and quantify the interrelation of wetland and tidal flows in the transition zone in response to real and hypothesized temporal and spatial variations in inflows, and 8) documenting the model implementation and any findings using it that are critical to improved management of the ecosystem.
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Center for
Coastal Geology
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