The Everglades of Florida, USA, is a mosaic of urban, agricultural, marsh and
forest habitats in a vast neotropical wetland, with a pattern that has been
altered by water management via canals, levees, and water control structures. We
developed a spatially explicit model of ecosystem processes and landscape
succession to evaluate landscape response to different water quantity/quality
management scenarios. A GIS partitions the model area into ~10,000 1 km2 grid
cells, storing data such as initial habitat types, elevation, and water levels.
An ecosystem unit model is replicated in each homogeneous cell and parameterized
according to the habitat type. The unit model simulates hydrology,
soil & water nutrients, periphyton biomass & community type, and
vegetation biomass & community type, with numerous feedbacks
among these components. Water and nutrients flux among the model's raster grid cells
and canal vectors, with controls at management structures that alter water
delivery in the system using output data from the South Florida Water Management Model. Unit model dynamics
respond to the varying water quantity and quality in the landscape mosaic, while
the pattern of vegetation (habitat) type may change in response to changing hydrology and
nutrient availability.
Most components of the Everglades Landscape Model have been
calibrated with available data, and we are evaluating different algorithms and
hypotheses concerning habitat transitions. The model
is now one of the tools in a research and management program at the
South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) to aid in focusing
research and evaluating changes in water management in the south Florida region.
