Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Tenth Biennial Review - 2024 (2024)
Chapter: 1 Introduction
1
Introduction
The Florida Everglades, formerly a large and diverse aquatic ecosystem, has been dramatically altered over the past 140 years by an extensive water control infrastructure originally designed to increase regional economic productivity through improved flood management, urban water supply, and agricultural production (Davis and Ogden, 1994). Shaped by the slow flow of water, its vast terrain of sawgrass plains, ridges, sloughs, and tree islands supported a high diversity of plant and animal habitats. This natural landscape also served as a sanctuary for Native Americans. However, large-scale changes to the landscape have diminished the natural resources, and by the mid- to late-20th century many of the area’s defining natural characteristics had been lost. The remnants of the original Everglades (Figure 1-1) now compete for vital water with urban and agricultural interests, and contaminated runoff from these two activities impairs the South Florida ecosystem.
Recognition of past declines in environmental quality, combined with continuing threats to the natural character of the remaining Everglades, led to initiation of large-scale restoration planning in the 1990s and the launch of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) in 2000. This unprecedented project envisioned the expenditure of billions of dollars in a multidecadal effort to achieve ecological restoration by reestablishing the hydrologic characteristics of the Everglades, where feasible, and to create a water system that simultaneously serves the needs of both the natural and the human systems of South Florida. Within the social, economic, and political latticework of the 21st century, restoration of the South Florida ecosystem is now under way and represents one of the most ambitious ecosystem renewal projects ever conceived. An overview of the CERP in the context of other ongoing restoration activities and the restoration goals that guide the overall effort is provided in Appendix A as background for readers new to the Everglades. This report represents the tenth independent assessment of the CERP’s progress by the Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
NOTE: The yellow line in (a) outlines the historical Everglades ecosystem, and the yellow line in (b) outlines the remnant Everglades ecosystem as of 1994.
SOURCE: Courtesy of C. McVoy, J. Obeysekera, and W. Said, South Florida Water Management District.
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES AND EVERGLADES RESTORATION
The National Academies have provided scientific and technical advice related to the Everglades restoration since 1999. The National Academies’ Committee on the Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem (CROGEE), which operated from 1999 to 2004, was formed at the request of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (hereafter, simply the Task Force), an intergovernmental
body established to facilitate coordination in the restoration effort, and the committee produced six reports (NRC, 2001, 2002a,b, 2003a,b, 2005). The National Academies’ Panel to Review the Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative produced an additional report in 2003 (NRC, 2003c; see Appendix B). The Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000) mandated that the United States Department of the Army, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the State of Florida, in consultation with the Task Force, establish an independent scientific review panel to evaluate progress toward achieving the natural system restoration goals of the CERP. The National Academies’ CISRERP was therefore established in 2004 under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After publication of each of the first nine biennial reviews (NASEM, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023; NRC, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014; see Appendix B for the report summaries), some members rotated off the committee and some new members were added. The committee is charged to submit biennial reports that address the following items:
- an assessment of progress in restoring the natural system, which is defined by section 601(a) of WRDA 2000 as all the land and water managed by the federal government and state within the South Florida ecosystem (Figure 1-2 and Box 1-1);
- a discussion of significant accomplishments of the restoration;
- a discussion and evaluation of specific scientific and engineering issues that may impact progress in achieving the natural system restoration goals of the plan; and
- an independent review of monitoring and assessment protocols to be used for evaluation of CERP progress (e.g., CERP performance measures, annual assessment reports, assessment strategies).
The primary audience for the report is Congress, as well as agency staff who are involved in Everglades restoration and stakeholders who are engaged with or deeply interested in restoration efforts.
Given the broad charge, the complexity of the restoration, and the continually evolving circumstances, the committee did not presume it could cover all issues that affect restoration progress in any single report. This report builds on the past reports by this committee and emphasizes restoration progress since 2022, high-priority scientific and engineering issues that the committee judged to be relevant to this time frame, and other issues that have impacted the pace of progress. The committee focused particularly on issues for which the “timing was right”—that is, the committee’s advice could be useful relative to the decision-making time frames—and on topics that had not been fully addressed in past National Academies’ Everglades reports. Interested readers should look to past reports by this committee to find detailed discussions of important topics, such
SOURCE: Map by International Mapping. Based on data compiled by Florida State University’s Florida Natural Areas Inventory (http://www.fnai.org/gisdata.cfm).
BOX 1-1
Geographic Terms
This box defines some key geographic terms used throughout this report.
- The Everglades, the Everglades ecosystem, or the remnant Everglades ecosystem refers to the present areas of sawgrass, marl prairie, and other wetlands and estuaries south of Lake Okeechobee (Figure 1-1b).
- The original, historical, or predrainage Everglades refers to the areas of sawgrass, marl prairie, and other wetlands and estuaries south of Lake Okeechobee that existed prior to the construction of drainage canals beginning in the late 1800s (Figure 1-1a).
- The Everglades watershed is the drainage that encompasses the Everglades ecosystem but also includes the Kissimmee River watershed and other smaller watersheds north of Lake Okeechobee that ultimately supply water to the Everglades ecosystem.
- The South Florida ecosystem (also known as the Greater Everglades Ecosystem; see Figure 1-3) extends from the headwaters of the Kissimmee River near Orlando through Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades into Florida Bay and ultimately the Florida Keys. The boundaries of the South Florida ecosystem are determined by the boundaries of the South Florida Water Management District, the southernmost of the state’s five water management districts, although they approximately delineate the boundaries of the South Florida watershed. This designation is important and helpful to the restoration effort because, as many publications have made clear, taking a watershed approach to ecosystem restoration is likely to improve the results, especially when the ecosystem under consideration is as water dependent as the Everglades (NRC, 1999, 2004a).
- The Water Conservation Areas (WCAs) include WCA-1 (the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge), -2A, -2B, -3A, and -3B (Figure 1-3).
The following represent legally defined geographic terms used in this report:
- The Everglades Protection Area is defined in the Everglades Forever Act as comprising WCA-1, -2A, -2B, -3A, and -3B and Everglades National Park.
- The natural system is legally defined in WRDA 2000 as “all land and water managed by the Federal Government or the State within the South Florida ecosystem” (Figure 1-2). “The term ‘natural system’ includes (i) water conservation areas; (ii) sovereign submerged land; (iii) Everglades National Park; (iv) Biscayne National Park; (v) Big Cypress National Preserve; (vi) other Federal or State (including a political subdivision of a State) land that is designated and managed for conservation purposes; and (vii) any tribal land that is designated and managed for conservation purposes, as approved by the tribe.”
Many maps in this report include shorthand designations that use letters and numbers for engineered additions to the South Florida ecosystem. For example, canals are labeled as C-#; levees and associated borrow canals as L-#; and structures, such as culverts, locks, pumps, spillways, control gates, and weirs, as S-# or G-#.
SOURCE: Map by International Mapping.
as Lake Okeechobee (NASEM, 2018; NRC, 2008), estuaries (NASEM, 2021), new information impacting the CERP (NASEM, 2016), the need for a midcourse assessment (NASEM, 2016, 2018), climate change (NASEM, 2016, 2023; NRC, 2014), invasive species (NRC, 2014), ecosystem services (NRC, 2010), and water quality and quantity challenges (NASEM, 2023; NRC, 2010) and trajectories (NRC, 2012). Past reports have also discussed various aspects of the CERP monitoring and assessment plan (NRC, 2004a, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014), including project-level monitoring (NASEM, 2018).
The full committee met 12 times for information gathering using a combination of virtual and hybrid meeting formats during the course of this review, and received briefings at these meetings from agencies, organizations, and individuals involved in the restoration as well as from the public (see Acknowledgments). The committee also participated in two field trips and held additional meetings in closed session to achieve consensus on this report. In addition to information received during the meetings, the committee based its assessment of progress on information in relevant CERP and non-CERP restoration documents. The committee’s conclusions and recommendations were also informed by a review of relevant scientific literature and the experience and knowledge of the committee members in their fields of expertise. The committee was unable to consider in significant detail new materials received after May 1, 2024.
REPORT ORGANIZATION
In Chapter 2, the committee analyzes the natural system restoration progress associated with the CERP and systemwide operational changes, along with programmatic factors, planning efforts, and other issues that affect future progress. In Chapters 3-5, the committee discusses different ways in which science can better inform restoration decision making. In Chapter 3, the committee reviews challenges and opportunities to better apply Indigenous Knowledge in restoration planning and management. In Chapter 4, the committee discusses opportunities to better incorporate climate change information and tools in restoration planning and implementation. Finally, in Chapter 5, the committee reviews the implementation of adaptive management and processes to incorporate new information in restoration decision making to improve restoration outcomes.
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