Photo from the South Florida Ecosystem History Project website

Investigators: Bruce R. Wardlaw and Thomas Cronin Proposals Accomplishments Data Metadata Publications Related Links

Summary

To provide the framework for understanding the subsurface of Florida.

A multitude of water-related societal issues face southern Florida in the 1990's. These include irrigation demands of agricultural; business, run-off from agricultural lands and canals, increasing demands of a rapidly growing population in the Naples and Miami area (Miami showing the fourth fastest growth rate in the U.S. in the 1980's), the recently mandated restoration of natural sheet flow through the Everglades ecosystem, and vitality of the important fisheries of Florida Bay. This project provides a baseline for the geologic framework of aquifers and a baseline for ecosystem variability and tracks the change in ecosystems through the last several hundred years to provide critical information for reasonable restoration targets to land planners and managers in southern Florida.

The following projects are now part of the Florida Cooperative Mapping project:

• Ecosystem History of Biscayne Bay and the Southeast Coast
• Ecosystem History: Florida Bay and the Southwest Coast
• Ecosystem History: Terrestrial and Fresh-water Ecosystems of Southern Florida

Florida Cooperative Mapping Project Activities

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• 1998
• 1999