Ecosystem Management of
South Florida
Developing a shared vision of ecological and societal sustainability
Mark A. Harwell
I
nter disciplinary science is becoming inextricably drawn into the
policy debate concerning complex
environmental and resource management issues. Examples include the
restoration of the Everglades, the
management of Chesapeake Bay, and
the development of options for managing fisheries and old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Society and the scientific community have
not yet converged on appropriate
mechanisms for interactions between
policy and science, nor have the relative balances of scientific issues and
societal values been satisfactorily esta blished. Nevertheless, recent focus
on interdisciplinary science, especially through the newly emerging
conceptual frameworks of ecosystem management, ecological risk assessment, and human-environment
interactions, can now advance this
discourse to a new level.
Under the auspices of the US Man
and the Biosphere (US MAB) HumanDominated Systems Directorate, a case
study on ecosystem management to
Mark A. Harwell is director of the Center for Marine and Environmental Analyses at the Rosenstiel School of Marine
and Atmospheric Science, University of
Miami, 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway,
Miami, FL 33149. He is an ecosystems
ecologist specializing in methods for ecological risk assessment and ecosystem
management. He is also chair of the US
Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board (SAB) Ecological
Processes and Effects Committee and
chair of the US Man and the Biosphere
Program (US MAB) Human-Dominated
Systems Directorate.
September 1997
The time has come to
take interdisciplinary
discussions beyond
the theoretical and
into the applied
achieve ecological sustainability of the
South Florida regional ecosystem has
been under way for the past five
years. The project participants have
developed generic ecosystem management principles (Bartuska et al.
in press, US MAB 1994) and have
applied these principles to the ecological and societal systems of South
Florida. The full case study is documented in M. Harwell et al. (in press
a). In this article, I describe the conceptual framework of this ecosystem
management case study as well as
the process of the study, its results,
and the practical lessons to emerge
from it, all of which may be applicable to other interdisciplinary scientific and policy studies.
The problem of South Florida
The South Florida regional ecosystem is a complex mosaic of communities linked by freshwater flow and
dependent on its interannual variability. But one of the world's largest
water management systems has fundamentally altered the natural systems to support a rapidly growing
human population. The key issue is
how to restore a sustainable natural
ecosystem while maintaining the services society requires.
The natural ecosystem. The essence
of the Everglades is the abundance
and diversity of species that once
lived in diverse habitats across vast
open spaces of "the river of grass"
and associated coastal estuaries, including sawgrass plains, mangrove
forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, and diverse estuaries (Douglas [1947] 1988). The unique qualities of this ecosystem, which are so
highly valued by humans, were historically defined by the hydrological,
landscape, and ecological factors that
are essential for sustainability (Davis
and Ogden 1994). These critical historical factors include the following
(Browder et al. in press):
Dynamic storage and sheetflow.
The hydrologic regime, with dynamic
storage and sheetflow of highly oligotrophic (low-nutrient) water across
the landscape and entering the
Florida and Biscayne Bays, established the essential quality of the
Everglades (Douglas 1947 [1988]).
This hydrology, operating over an
extensive area, organized and concentrated primary and secondary
production, established salinity gradients important to the estuaries,
and concentrated production into a
network of dry season refugia for
freshwater fish and invertebrates.
Because of the dynamic storage and
slow rate of water flow, wet season
precipitation kept the wetlands wet
and freshwater flowing to the estuaries into the dry season so that a
499
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Figure 1. The South Florida Water Management District and key components of the
regional system. Note the general water flow from the Kissimmee River watershed,
through Lake Okeechobee, and across a broad pathway, now covered by the
Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) and Water Conservation Areas (WCA), through
Everglades National Park to Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the
historic flows are now diverted through the Caloosahatchee River, St. Lucie Canal,
and a series of canals through the EAA and WCAs.
year of high rainfall maintained surface water into subsequent drought
years (Fennema et al. 1994). Because
of minor differences in topography,
different parts of the landscape had
different water depths and durations
of wet conditions (known as hydroperiod). Areas with longer hydroperiods supported abundant and diverse populations of freshwater
500
invertebrates, which supported large
numbers of wading birds (Ogden
1994). These variable hydroperiods
also shaped the communities of the
coastal estuaries.
Nutrients for plant growth were
derived principally from rainfall and
were widely distributed and rapidly
assimilated into the carbonate-based
system, resulting in low concentra-
tions of nutrients throughout the
fresh and saline waters. The oligatrophic conditions determined the
characteristic biota of the Everglades,
preventing replacement of this unique
flora with exotic plants that would
outcompete native vegetation if nutrients were elevated.
Large spatial scale. The region's
high biotic diversity and the persistence of ecologically important populations were consequences of the large
spatial scale over which the mosaic
of habitats existed (Davis and Ogden
1994, Science SubGroup 1993).
Large spatial extent of the connected
wetland and upland systems is necessary for populations of animals
that require large ranges for feeding
(Craighead 1979), which in the Everglades historically included the
Florida panther, alligators, and wading birds (Craighead 1968, Robertson and Frederick 1994). A large
spatial area was particularly necessary in the oligotrophic system to
ensure sufficient secondary production to support large numbers of
vertebrates. The large vertebrates had
to be mobile (because food was
patchily distributed across the
landscape as a result of small differences in elevation and nutrient
availability) and capable of adjusting the timing and location of reproductive and feeding activities .
These features arc associated with
high in terann ual varia bili ty in
population levels.
Habitat heterogeneity. Heterogeneous vegetation distribution (from
uplands and freshwater wetlands to
mangroves, estuaries, and bays) interacted with physical environmental factors (e.g., microtopographical
relief, local climatic variation, and
episodic disturbances) to create a
complex mosaic of habitats across
the landscape. The variety of habitats and hydroperiods constituted the
spatial framework to support the
diverse animal populations that were
characteristic of the predrainage Everglades under a range of climatic
conditions (Davis and Ogden 1994).
The habitat mosaic was sustained
only by the heterogeneity and large
scale of connected upland-wetlandestuarine ecosystems (Browder et al.
in press).
Natural disturbances. The South
Florida regional ecosystem is highly
BioScience Vol. 47 No. 8
••
•
,
~
..
•••
•
, '.
Figure 2. Wetland vegetation of South Florida . (a) Historic vegetation. (b) Current vegetation. The water management system
is the primary reason for the change in the landscape of ecological communities, except that the historic pinelands have been
almost totally converted to urban development. The rich soils of the historic swamp forest and sawgrass plains south of Lake
Okeechobee were drained, and those ecosystems are virtually gone, replaced by the EAA (see Figure 1). The remaining slough
mosaic, sawgrass mosaic, southern marsh, and Florida Bay and other estuaries are all greatly at risk and will be irreversibly
lost if appropriate modifications to the water management system are not made soon . Redrawn from Davis et al. (1994).
subject to natural disturbances. The
frequency and intensity of fires were
determined by the interannual variability in the timing and duration of
the wet and dry seasons, and interacted closely with the local hydrologic conditions (e.g., hardwood
hammocks developed a relatively
deep surrounding moat over time as
a result of dissolution of the limestone bedrock, retarding fires and
allowing maturation of the hardwood
forest; Gunderson and Snyder 1994).
Infrequent freeze events, prolonged
droughts, and extreme winds and
storm surges from hurricanes were
also critical to the landscape-level
structure and function of the regional
ecosystem (Davis and Ogden 1994,
Duever et al. 1994, Myers and Ewel
1990, Science SubGroup 1993).
These natural characteristicsdynamic storage and sheetflow, large
spatial scale, habitat heterogeneity,
and natural disturbances-were es-
September 1997
sential for the sustainability of the
Everglades (Browder et al. in press).
However, an extensively engineered
system of canals, levees, and dikes
presently regulates this unique re gional ecosystem (Figure 1). Drainage and channelization projects initiated in the 1880s were designed
initially to drain land for human
activities (agriculture and urban development) and subsequently (following disastrous hurricanes in the
1920s and 1940s) to provide flood
control for the human population
along the east coast of South Florida
(Light and Dineen 1994). The current artificial management has severely disrupted dynamic storage and
sheetflow and has significantly reduced and fragmented the spatial extent and heterogeneity of the mosaic.
Moreover, natural episodic disturbances have now become additional
stressors contributing to the system's
decline.
Whereas water was once the critical characteristic of the natural Everglades system, it has become its
most limiting resource. Most important, there is a lack of adequate quantities and timely distribution of clean
water to coincide with the system's
natural cycles. This situation has reduced the natural Everglades to a
degraded remnant (Figure 2; Davis
et al. 1994): Only half of the original
Everglades remains in a near-natural
state, and only one-fifth is highly
protected in the US MAB Biosphere
Reserve and Everglades National
Park (Derr 1993).
As a result, the Everglades is an
endangered ecosystem. It is not sustainable and, in the absence of significant changes, will continue to
decline. For legal and political reasons, efforts to restore the ecosystem
initially focused just on issues of
water quality (in particular, phosphorus inputs), with limited atten501
tion paid to water delivery policies.
However, to recapture the historical
characteristics of the natural system
and to achieve long-term ecological
sustainability, fundamental regionalscale changes in the water management system are essential (Harwell
and Long 1992).
The human system. South Florida
was little affected by humans until
the late nineteenth century (see
Solecki et al. in press). The coastal
and Everglades watersheds were divided by the Atlantic Coastal Ridge
(primarily the pine forests shown in
Figure 2a; Hoffmeister 1974), and
most early settlers lived within a few
miles of the Atlantic Ocean or in the
Florida Keys (Solecki et al. in press).
The Everglades themselves were not
settled because of high rates of flooding and fires and large populations
of mosquitoes. The human population of South Florida increased from
23,000 in 1900 to 229,000 in 1930,
with most of the growth occurring
east of the Ridge, although agricultural areas south of Lake Okeechobee
were settled by the 1920s. Bythe 1940s,
human settlement had begun in areas
of potential flooding in the natural
Everglades (Solecki et al. in press).
Everglades National Park, which
was established in 1947 (Tebeau
1990), protected a large, contiguous
area from human development. However, because of three major hurricanes in 1947-1948, millions of acres
in Central and South Florida were
flooded for up to six months; agricultural communities were particularly affected, with major loss of life,
property, and cropland (Bottcher and
Izuno 1994, Davis and Ogden 1994).
Because of these massive floods, Congress authorized the US Army Corps
of Engineers to build the Central and
Southern Florida (C&SF) Flood Control Project, which was a major turning point for the regional environment (Light and Dineen 1994).
The C&SF Flood Control Project
was designed solely to support human needs, but it seriously compromised two defining characteristics of
the natural Everglades: It reduced
their spatial scale and, to reduce flood
risks, it eliminated much of the dynamic storage capacity of the system. Management tended to even
out the water flow through the sys502
tem, reducing temporal variability
(both seasonal and interannual) and
associated spatial differences in water flow that were essential to habitat heterogeneity. These effects would
lead inevitably to a marked degradation in the Everglades in the following decades that continues to this
day. In fact, the Everglades National
Park is considered to be the nation's
most endangered national park
(Solecki et al. in press).
The South Florida population increased from 750,000 in 1950 to 4.1
million in 1990 (US Bureau of the
Census 1993). The forces driving
this growth included increases in the
area of flood-controlled land available for development; increased retirement incomes, allowing US retirees to settle in South Florida;
increased commercial interests, such
as recreation, fisheries, and agriculture; and massive international immigration, initially from Cuba and
more recently from the Caribbean
and Central America. Moreover, the
development of mosquito control and
air conditioning permitted yearround comfortable living in South
Florida. Although South Florida is
one of the fastest growing areas in
the United States, the urban corridor
is directly adjacent to wilderness.
The result is one of the world's steepest gradients in population density,
from dense urban development near
the coast to less than one person per
km 2 (in 1990) just a few km inland
(Solecki et al. in press). The continuing high growth rate (a net increase
of almost 1 million persons per decade) will result in continuing pressure to develop areas for housing
(e.g., through conversion of agricultural lands).
Because its population increase
occurred relatively recently, South
Florida's economy is primarily service based, rather than agricultural
or industrial based. Consequently,
the human population largely developed without relying directly on the
area's natural resources-that is,
food is mostly imported, and industrial pollution is limited. However,
large-scale agribusiness is located
south of Lake Okeechobee, directly
in the historical path of water flow
between the Lake and the Everglades.
Thus, although not directly feeding
the South Florida population, the
region's agriculture does have a direct impact on the natural environment.
Drainage of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) began in 1883
and continued into the 1950s, when
C&SF added control structures, such
as levees, dikes, and canals (Bottcher
and Izuno 1994, Light and Dineen
1994). The EAA underwent a critical
expansion in the 1960s, as the United
States eliminated imports of sugar
from Cuba and several major sugar
production companies moved to the
EAA from Cuba (Solecki et al. in
press). The EAA now consists of
280,000 ha of highly organic soils
that are used primarily for sugarcane
and secondarily for rice and winter
vegetables.
The factors that initially encouraged and supported the growth of
EAA agriculture are likely to change
in the coming decades. Driving forces
for change include globalization of
markets and more regional free trade
agreements, continuing loss of soil
through subsidence, declining political support for sugar price protection, eventual change in the government of Cuba and concomitant
changes in United States-Cuba trade
policies, and westward expansion of
housing developments (Solecki et al.
in press). Another significant threat
to long-term prospects for EAA sugar
production is the broad perception
among the public that the dominant
cause of degradation in the Everglades
is the sugar industry, as demonstrated
by a 1996 statewide ballot initiative to
impose an environmental tax on sugar.
Given the importance of hydrology to the sustainability of the Everglades and the location of the EAA in
the middle of the freshwater flow,
water management for the EAA has
greatly affected the South Florida
environment. The historic wet-dry seasons of South Florida require that the
EAA be pumped-for drainage in the
wet season (May-October) or for irrigation in the dry season (NovemberApril)-to produce commercially viable crops. Drainage has accelerated
the oxidation (i.e., decomposition)
of organic soils, leading to more than
1.5 m of soil subsidence throughout
much of the EAA (Snyder 1994,
Snyder and Davidson 1994). This
pumping, along with normal surface
flow patterns, has led to nutrient
BioScience Vol. 47 No. 8
enrichment of the Water Conservation Areas (WCAs) fringing the EAA
and to drawdown of stored water
from these areas in some especially
dry years. Nutrient problems have
led to important changes in farm
management practices and to major
lawsuits among almost all parties
involved. A significant component
of the lawsuits was settled by the
passage of the Everglades Forever
Act of 1994, which apportioned costs
among the parties to fund construction of fringe marshes, called stormwater treatment areas (STAs), that
were designed to filter nutrients. These
lawsuits focused attention on the issue
of water quality as a major endpoint
of restoring Everglades health.
One human factor that may not
be an inevitable threat to the Everglades is population growth itself.
There was a popular misconception
during the 1970s and 1980s that
population growth threatened the
Everglades directly by increasing the
demand for water, and it was widely
believed that the Everglades could
not be restored without reducing the
total population of South Floridaa socially and economically unfeasible scenario. However, there appears to be sufficient water for urban,
agricultural, and natural environment requirements provided that the
system has sufficient storage to capture water that is presently being
sent via canals to the Atlantic or Gulf
(0 beysekera et al. in press a).
The US MAB processconceptual framework
Major changes in the environment
of the Everglades region have clearly
been caused by human choices and
activities. Because water distribution
within the region is dominated by
the complex engineered structures of
the C&SF and by active management
decisions, the key to restoring and sustaining environmental health in the
region is integrating and balancing the
needs and choices of both the environmental and human systems. The US
MAB project was instituted to take
several conceptual frameworks and
apply them to the practical solution of
this regional environmental problem.
Overview of US MAB ecosystem
management case study. US MAB
September 1997
Figure 3. Conceptual
model of ecological
Present
sustainability. The
System
possible ecological
sustainability states
GOal Selecrtio_n
____
align on a continuum,
from highly humanFuture
altered to prehuman
System
natural conditions,
with many states in
Natural-Human
between. Societal
Changes
Possible
preferences determine
Ecological
which specific ecoSustainabi Iity
logical state along the
States
continuum is desired
for each part of the
landscape. Management goals are to move the present ecological system from a nonsustainable condition
toward the desired sustainable system.
j
was established in 1970 as an international institution to foster understanding of human interactions with
the environment. US MAB is sponsored by more than a dozen federal
agencies and conducts interdisciplinary research through five research
directorates. The strength and uniqueness of the US MAB scientific research
program derive from its membership:
Each directorate consists of an equal
number of natural and social scientists, drawn equally from academic
institutions and government. Participants contribute their expertise and
experience but do not officially represent their affiliated institutions or agencies. Consequently, US MAB is an
independent forum that combines the
best elements of interdisciplinarity,
academic freedom, scientific objectivity, and real-world experience. In
addition to the research program, US
MAB designates Biosphere Reserves
as sites for promoting ecosystem management through building harmonious relationships between human activities and the conservation of
ecosystems and biological diversity (US
MAB 1995). Everglades National Park
is one Biosphere Reserve.
The US MAB Human-Dominated
Systems Directorate (HDS) develops
generic principles and methods to
study human-environment interactions in ecological systems that have
been modified by human activities.
Only through applying these principles and methods to real-world
problems can the science become
practical and relevant. Consequently,
in 1991, HDS established a core
project on ecosystem management
for ecological sustainability, seeking
to define w ha t ecological sustainability means ecologically and
societally, to evaluate patterns of
human uses of the environment, to
establish ecological sustainability
goals, to examine societal factors
affecting sustainability, to assess potential policies and institutions to
attain ecological sustainability, and
to address these issues through a
case study on South Florida (Harwell
et al. 1991). The overall process became an increasingly interactive, outcome-oriented dialogue among scientists and managers that evolved from a
series of traditional workshops to a
charette, an intensive two-week retreat at which the participants attempted to synthesize and integrate
information and understanding from
the natural and social sciences.
The foundation of ecosystem management is defining ecological
sustainability goals-that is, explicitly deciding what parts of a regional
ecosystem are to be protected and
maintained at high levels of ecological condition and what parts are to
be sacrificed to support the human
population and/or to protect core
areas. For South Florida, this process is complicated by the heterogeneity of the landscape and the diversity of ecological states that are
possible with different levels of human management (Figure 3). At
one extreme, the Everglades could
be managed as a totally artificial
environment (e.g., maintaining enclosures of selected species to be
viewed by tourists). At the other extreme, the Everglades could be re503
US MAB steps for asses ing
ecological su tainability
Th
• t B proj t identified a cries of steps to follov to e rablish
ecologi al susrainabiliry, These step derive from the ecological ri k
a.. e ment frarncv ork and provide a y tcmaric wa to chara rcriz
su rainabilir y goal for a regional eco y tern like outh Florida.
• develop a on eptual model of human inrera rions with the
en ironment (Lo ng and Ilarwell 1995 )
• develop an initial s t of generi ecosystem manag rncnt prin ciple (Ba rru ka et al. in press,
• I R 1994 )
• define rh bounds of rh regional c 0 y tcm and id ntify
important ccosy t m type (Ha rwe ll and Long 1992 )
• elect ecological cndpoinrs for each osysrem for evaluating
the health of the cco y. tern ( .entilc er '11. 1993, Harwell and
Long 1992, Harwcll t al. 1990 )
• haracr rizc natural and anrhropogeni stress regim for ea h
'CO Y rem typ (Ha rwell 1992, Harv ell and Long 1992)
• characterize the 0 ictal factor and rnechani ms for human
ffccrs on e os rem (Lo ng and Harwcll 1995 )
• characterize the I gal, c onomic, in titurionnl, and other so ital fa tor aff ring rho em hani ms (Hama nn and Ank r on
1995, Long and Harwell 1995, olecki tal. in pre s)
• characr rize human value ,1I1d 0 ieral prefer ne of rcl vanr
interest group
• c rablish ccologi '11 usrainabiliry goal in tcrm of ecological
end point and human values (Ha rw 11 et al. 1996 )
turned completely to its pre-drainage condition, with natural flows of
water throughout the original watershed . Neither extreme is realistic
or acceptable to society. However,
between these extremes are many
different potential ecosystems distributed along a continuum of naturalness versus artificiality, each sustainable if subject to the appropriate
management system.
What types of sustainable ecological systems are possible is a scientific issue that is determined by the
ecosystem itself, but the particular
ecological system that is selected is a
societal decision, made either explicitly or de facto. However, societal
values and goals may shift over time.
This shift is illustrated by the public's
past desire to drain wetlands to al low human settlements, to support
the agricultural industry with water
that historically flowed into the Everglades, and to provide flood protection for urban development,
whereas more recent societal goals
are to restore the Everglades and
Florida Bay and to protect endan504
gered species. Overlying this dynamic
societal situation, ecological systems
are themselves also complex and
highly dynamic, varying naturally
even in the absence of human influences. Thus, ecosystems change as
the result of both natural processes
(e.g., succession and disturbancerecovery cycles) and anthropogenic
influences. Ideally, appropriate societa 1 policies and institutions could
be developed both to direct the
changes in ecosystems necessary to
achieve sustainability goals and to
maintain the appropriate societal
controls that are required for longterm ecological sustainability .
Two major workshops were convened to address the ecological and
societal issues of ecological sustainability in South Florida. The ecological workshop was held at the
Rosenstiel School of Marine and
Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami in May 1992 to identify the regional boundaries and ecosystems of concern for South Florida,
ecological endpoints for characterizing the present and prospective health
of those ecosystems, tentative ecological sustainability goals (i.e., de sired ecological conditions), and the
anthropogenic and natural stresses
impinging on the ecosystems (Harwell and Long 1992). The second
workshop was convened in]uly 1993
in Easton, Maryland, to address the
counterpart societal issues, including the historic and current legal,
policy, economic, and institutional
framework of South Florida, and to
seek cross-cutting factors that relate
societal actions to ecological sustainability (Long and Harwe1l1995).
The US MAB project followed the
"problem formulation component"
of the ecological risk assessment
paradigm that was developed for the
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA 1992, Harwell and Gentile
1992) in response to the recognition
that traditional risk assessment methodology (NRC 1983) is inadequate
to address the range of environmental stressors and ecological endpoints
that must be considered in ecological
risk assessments. This inadequacy
reflects the facts that ecological risks
entail a broad suite of chemical and
nonchemical stressors of natural and
anthropogenic origin, acting both
individually and in concert, whereas
traditional risk assessment has a
single-chemical focus, and that ecological systems have many characteristics of concern, termed ecological endpoints, whereas human risk
assessments emphasize a single characteristic, cancer. Consequently, the
ecological risk assessment process
extends previous risk assessment
methods (Gentile et a1. 1993): stress
and ecological effects characterizations proceed in parallel; endpoints
are selected based on their ecological
and social importance (Harwell et
a1. 1990); and the problem formulation component identifies the stressors, end points, analytical methods,
and conceptual model of the systems
at risk. The US MAB project has supplemented this ecological risk assessment approach with components
that are relevant to ecological sustainability issues (see box this page).
In preparation for the synthesis
part of the US MAB project, additional tasks included:
• development of a centralized
geographical information system
BioScience Vol. 47 No. 8
(GIS) database for South Florida
for sharing information among
the MAB participants and for
exploring specific human-environment relationships; the GIS
database includes natural and
societal information, such as
current and historical distributions of vegetation, soils, climate,
dernographics, and economic
characteristics (Solccki et al.
1995);
• development of an extensive
bibliography (Borden and Landers 1996) concerning the South
Florida regional environmental
and societal systems and generic
methods and principles of human-environment interactions,
ecological risk assessment, and
ecosystem management;
• initiation of mechanism-oriented research on human-environment interactions, including
analysis of economic processes
relevant to South Florida; analysis of the current and historical
legal and institutional framework
for South Florida (Harnann and
Ankerson 1995); examination of
the current (human-altered) and
historical (natural) hydrological
system of South Florida (Obeysekera et al. in press a); analysis
of international trade, economic,
soils degradation, and other factors affecting the sustainability
of the sugar industry in the EAA
(c. Harwell et a1. in press); examination of alternative agricultural possibilities for the EAA;
and study of the broader constitutional issue of "takings" as
related to regional environmental management (Tisher 1994).
The results of the ecological and
socieral workshops and the subsequent research activities formed the
technical foundations for the third,
and defining, activity of the case
study-the charette convened on Isle
au Haut, Maine, in June 1994. The
charette was intended to provide a
setting in which approximately 50
social and natural scientists, supplemented by South Florida environmental decision makers, could interact to achieve integration of the
various components into an overall
assessment of ecosystem management
for South Florida. Working groups
September 1997
Isle au Haut ecosystem
management principles
At the charcrre on lsl au Ham, the
MAB project d velop d a et of
principle for eco y tern management (
M B 1994 ). The e prin iples
e .pand on th concept developed by the lnrera 'cncy E 0 ystcrn Management Task Force (IEM T F 199-a, 199-b).
• u e an ologi al approa h that would recover and maintain the
biologi al diver iry, e ological function, and defining characteri tic of natural e o. y tern
• r eo mize that human ar part of eco y terns, and they hap
and arc hap d by rh natural y tern -that i .jhe u rainabiliry
of e ological and ocieral y rem arc mutually d pendent
• adopt a management approach that recognize that ecosy terns
and in tirurion ar haracreri tically hererogcneou in time and
pace
• inregrar u rained economic and community a rivity into the
management of e 0 y terns
• develop a hared vi ion of desired ondition for so ietal y t ms
and ecologi al ysrcms
• provide for ecosy tern gov rnan e at appropriate ccologi al and
in rirurional cale
• u adaptive management a the mechani m for achi ving both
de ired ourcom and n w under tanding regarding eco y tern
conditions
• inre zrare the be t cience availabl into the deci ion-making procc s, \ hile conrinuin cienrific re earch to reduce unccrrainrie
• implement eo y tern management principle through oordi nared zovernrnent and nongovernment plan and activitie
were established to complete development of the frameworks for ecological sustainability and for ecological-societal interactions (Harwell
and Gentile in press, Solecki et al. in
press); to develop ecological susrainability goals for the region (M.
Harwell et al. in press); to reach
consensus on the characteristic qualities of the historical Everglades as a
benchmark for assessing sustainability goals (Browder et al. in press); to
refine and finalize generic ecosystem
management principles (see box this
page; Bartuska et al. in press, US
MAB 1994); to develop an improved
understanding of the hydrological
system, historically and currently
(Obeysekera et al. in press a); to
develop plausible regional scenarios
of alternate management regimes for
the hydrological system (Obeysekera
et al. in press b); to evaluate the
consequences of the scenarios to the
ecological systems of the Everglades
(Ogden et a!. in press); to evaluate
the consequences of the scenarios to
societal systems (c. Harwell et al. in
press); and to explore issues of governance and institutional development
that are consistent with ecosystem
management tor South Florida (M.
Harwell et a!. in press b).
The scenarios and results
To examine the environmental effects of human actions, the case study
used an approach called scenario consequence analyses. In this approach,
a hypothetical set of conditions, or
scenarios, are developed that are internally consistent and scientifically
defensible and that specify factors
needed to evaluate effects (Harwell
and Hutchinson 1985). The scenarios
provide a structured way to assess
the implications of management actions for both ecological and social
systems. They allow effects to be
analyzed even when data or understanding are inadequate or situations
are unkn owable. This approach
makes it possible to compare the
relative costs and benefits of alternative management strategies, provid505
Figure 4. A scenari o
fro m the US MAB
charette that offers the
pot ent ial for mutual
susrainabiliry of th e
Everglades and agricultura l systems. The
core protection area
includes all publicly
held cont iguous wetland s of the or iginal
Everglades wa tershed
with increased natural sheetflow across
.the water con servation areas, Big Cypre ss National Preserve, and Everglades
N at ional Pa rk. Water sto ra ge and supply buffer functions
are p rovided by adjace n t ar ea s, esp ecially the EAA and
Lake Oke echobee. An
east coast buffer strip
provides habitat protection , gro undwa ter
seepage, and limits to
urb an development.
t/vl c
•
ing a stron g basis
for selecting among
options. The specificity of scena rios
allo ws full exploration of relati on ships between acti ons and effects at
a level of resolution not possible
fro m generic analyses. T his a pproac h
can yield important insights and iden tify areas where furth er research or
ana lysis is needed.
Scenarios were developed at the
charette to explore a range of spati all y ex plicit management options
that might lead to ecological and
social sustainability in the Everglades
and South Florida. This process re flect ed the consensus th at the current spatial extent and patterns of
eco logy and hydrology suppo rt neith er a susta ina ble Everglad es nor a
sustaina ble South Flo rid a ecosystem
(Browder et al. in press, Davis and
Ogden 1 99 4, H ar well a nd Long
1992 , Scien ce SubGroup 19 93 ).
Th e cha rette developed th e specific cha racte ristics th at define the
essence of the Ever glades a nd, thu s,
the cha ra cteristics that constitute
ec o lo gi ca l s us t ai n abi li t y goa ls
(Bro w de r et al. in pr ess, H arwell et
al. 19 96) . Consequence ana lysis was
done to evaluate th e eco lo gi ca l
sustaina bility of each scena ri o- th at
506
Core
is, th e degree to which a scenar io
co uld reco ver th e definin g eco logica l
cha racteristics of th e regional landscape mo saic. Societal sustaina bility
was assessed by measu rin g the degree to which th e hist o rical agricultural community of th e region could
be maintained in the face of severe
pressures from development, soil
degradation, and environmental and
political liabil iti es.
Each scena rio includes all existing management systems plus man agement changes th at have been
authorized but not yet im p lemented, includ in g the Kiss immee Ri ver
Restoration Proj ect (which will
unchannelize th at ri ver ), a series
of h ydrolo gic impro veme n ts fo r
water treatment a n d impro ved
h ydrop eri ods i n th e EAA a n d
W CAs, st ru ct ura l a nd ope rati onal
changes for so me m ajor drainage
canal s, and acq uisi t io n o f ce rta in
priv atel y held land in sou the as tern
Dade Co un ty (Florida Governor's
Commission Rep ort 1995 ).
Hydrological anal yses ind icated
th at the combinati on of all of these
actions still leaves th e system with
the following deficiencies:
• insufficient storage of water in
Lak e Okeechobee without damaging th e Lake ecosystem;
• lack of dynamic storage space
to ca pture regulatory releases
from Lak e Okeechobee and the
EAA for use within the Everglades and the lower east coast
during dr y time s;
• abno rma l water depths and
altered sheetflow patterns resulting fro m levees and other barriers to water flow;
• seepage losses to the east, from
both the W CAs and Everglades
N ati onal Park, caused by low er
wa ter tables in the immediate
vicinity of the lower east coa st
protective levee;
• insufficient dynamic storage
space to capture lower east coast
sto rmwater runoff for use by
natu ral and human systems;
• loss of a substa nt ial portion of
th e original cor e area of the Everglades and associated loss of
hyd roperiod s and reduction of
wa ter levels in these are as;
• int erruption of sheetflo w to
th e cur rent core area from upstrea m wetlands lost to urb an
development;
• lack of adequate sur face and
gro undwater conditions throughout th e short-hydro period mad
pra iries of the southern Everglades.
T hese limitations will result in a
continuing decline of the reg ional
eco syst em if further major modifications to the water management system ar e not implemented. The US
MAB scenarios were developed to
explore po ssible regional man agement regimes to correct these and
ot he r deficien cies. Scenarios differed
by size and location of core and
buffer areas, based on the Biosphere
Reser ve con cept (H arw ell and Long
1992 ). Co re area s are defined by th e
ec o log ica l ch aracteri stics of the
pr edraina ge Everglades [i.e., at th e
most natural part of th e ecological
susta inab ility spectr um [Figure 3]).
Core a reas in th e scena rios ranged
fro m the current boundaries of Ever glades N ati onal Park (dete rm ined to
be insuffi cient to achi eve susta ina bility) to the boundaries of all the cur rentl y owned public lands connected
to Everglad es National Park (includ-
BioScience Vol. 47 N o. 8
ing the WCAs, Big Cypress National
Preserve, Florida Keys National Ma rine Sanctuary, Loxahatchee National
Wildlife Refuge, Lake Okeechobee,
and other areas to be acquired).
The larger core area was deemed
sufficiently large for ecological
sustainability, provided that adequate buffer areas were added. Consequently, the scenarios also varied
in the nature and extent of buffer
areas. Buffer areas are in the middle
of the ecological spectrum; they serve
mainly as support systems to the
core areas (e.g., water storage and
supply) or to the human population
(e.g., water supply, flood protection,
or enhancement of water quality),
and their ecological qualities are of
secondary importance.
One particular scenario was considered to be capable of meeting the
sustainability goals (Figure 4). In this
scenario, more flood control water is
released from Lake Okeechobee into
the Everglades system; the natural
dynamic storage capacity at the upper end of the Everglades basin is
reinstated; and more natural patterns of sheetflow, hydroperiods, and
hydro patterns throughout the Everglades and more natural volume and
timing of water flow int o coastal
ecosystems are established. This scenario will require not only dynamic
water storage capacity, but also the
capacity to move large volumes of
water quickly into the storage areas
and to release it slowly to simulate
natural sheetflow downstream. Increased demands on water for natural
system support would be counterbalanced by recovery of additional water
released to tide and reduction of seepage loss from water storage areas.
This scenario has a greatly ex panded core area, with water supply
function provided by new storage
areas located in the EAA, more natural water patterns for Lake Okeechobee, and development of an extended east coast buffer zone along
the entire boundary between the core
and urban areas. The proposed buffer
area, called a Water Protection Area
(WPA), would be a contiguous system of interconnected marsh areas,
detention reservoirs, seepage barriers, and water treatment areas along
the eastern side of the lower east
coast protective levee. Agriculture
would be altered to allow increased
September 1997
D .
•
.,
D .'
r2J
t~
0
El
Figure 5. Preferred alternative for the South Florida ecosystem. This map is a US MAB
representation of the conceptual plan and preferred alternative of the Florida Governor's
Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (Florida Governor's Commission 1995,
1996). The major elements of this plan conform to the US MAB scenario: Storage and
release of low-nutrient water for reestablishment of natural hydroperiods are done by
conversion of some agricultural lands in the southern part of the EAA and by modifications to management of Lake Okeechobee. The Water Preservation Areas provide a
barrier to water seepage to the east and a barrier to urban development moving west. The
redesign of canals and levees in the WCA and Big Cypress areas will open a much larger
contiguous area for natural hydroperiods. Increased water flow through the Everglades
will improve the health of Florida Bay. Higher water tables in the EAA will reduce soil
loss, thus enhancing the long-term viability of agriculture in the EAA.
elevation of the water table to the
surface , eliminating soil subsidence .
Incentives could be instituted in support of flooded agriculture, water
storage, and acquisition of land in
the EAA, These agricultural management changes could make EAA
agriculture itself sustainable, reducing its risk of conversion to more
damaging fo rms of agriculture (i.e.,
crops other than sugar or rice) or to
residential development, which
would be even more damaging. Although much remains to be done to
model and refine the scenario into
actual restoration plans, this scenario
offers a win-win situation, in which
ecological and agricultural sustainability are mutually dependent.
An active process has been insti tuted since the charette to bring the
ideas, methods, scenarios, and ana ly-
507
ses of the US MAB project into the
extensive ongoing dialogue concerning the future of the regional environment of South Florida. The federal-level activities are coordinated
through a hierarchy of interagency
groups. A major focus of the federal
activities is the comprehensive study
that is under way by the US Army
Corps of Engineers to redesign the
structure and operations of the C&SF
Project. The state-level activities are
led by the Florida Governor's Commission on a Sustainable South
Florida, which has recently reached
consensus on an overall plan for the
regional environment (Figure 5;
Florida Governor's Commission
1996) that closely follows the preferred scenario developed by US
MAB. The US MAB project has
clearly been the source of a paradigm shift within this dialogue from
"what do we do?" to "how can ecosystem management solve our
sustainability problems?" However,
much work remains to be done to
build a shared vision of a sustainable
South Florida and to implement the
ecosystem management principles
that are essential for regional
sustainability (Florida Governor's
Commission 1995, 1996, Harwell et
al. 1996, M. Harwell et al. in press b).
Lessons from the ecosystem
management case study
The process of the US MAB case
study provides lessons that can be
applied to other ecosystem management activities. The most important
lessons relate to how to facilitate the
unusually interdisciplinary and integrative work necessary for applying
conceptual ideas of ecosystem management and ecological risk assessment to solving real-world environmental problems.
The team. Central to the success of
this case study was recruiting a team
of scientists and decision makers who
could expand beyond their individual
perspectives to do truly integrative
thinking. This team-building includes
several key elements.
In terdisciplinarity. The participants represented a broad diversity
of disciplines, including, for example,
not only ecologists working with
hydrologists and climatologists, but
508
also natural scientists from other
disciplines (e.g., geology, agronomy,
and systems science), social scientists
(including economists, demographers,
social geographers, anthropologists,
legal scholars, and management scientists), and technology specialists
(e.g., GIS and modeling).
Development of an integrative
group. The individual participants
not only had to function within their
disciplinary perspectives, but also
had to be able and willing to subsume individual perspectives for the
integrated whole. We found that this
ability is uncommon. A core integrative group must evolve over time,
coalescing around those individuals
capable of making this essential transition.
Development of group perspectives. Participants had to gain a suf-
ficient understanding of the languages and thought processes by
which different disciplines think
about and approach problems. Different disciplines often use the same
words to mean different concepts, so
basic assumptions of the meaning of
words had to be considered more carefully. In addition, having sufficient
time to engage fully in discussion, to
broaden individual perspectives, and
to reach collective consensus is essential. There are no shortcuts to
this process. One mechanism for
achieving this group perspective was
to facilitate a strong sense of camaraderie among the participants. The
charette, in which the group was
brought together in a remote location for almost two weeks to concentrate their intellectual, as well as
personal, interactions was the culmination of that organization.
Multifaceted affiliations. The
mixture of academic scientists, government scientists, and nonscientist
decision makers, working in an open,
equitable mode with all participants
providing their expertise and knowledge as individuals rather than as
representatives of their agencies, resulted in an important merging of
real-world perspectives and experiences with the best academic qualities, such as theoretical constructs,
objectivity, and independence of
thought.
Avoidance of regulatory constraints. The Federal Advisory Com-
mittee Act (FACA), which restricts
advisory input to many federal decisions to federal employees or legislatively designated advisory groups,
significantly constrains agency scientists from gaining a broader perspective through outreach to the academic community. The US MAB
process builds on maximizing communications among scientists irrespective of their institutional affiliations. Unfortunately, one scientist's
affiliated agency constrained his participation through a misinterpretation of FACA applicability. FACA
has recently been modified to allow
participation by state and local government personnel and by tribes, but
impediments to the involvement of
academic and nongovernmental scientists remain, contrary to the necessity of ecosystem management.
The process. In addition to using the
right team, it was also clear that
specific process steps were necessary
to apply ecosystem management principles. We learned several important
lessons about the process.
Utility of a case study. Clearly,
much can be accomplished by bringing together an ad hoc group of scientists to develop new principles related
to ecology (e.g., the group assembled
by the Ecological Society of America
that produced the Sustainable Biosphere Initiative; Lubchenco et al.
1991). However, significant advancement in environmental management
requires not just developing generic
principles but applying these to a specific case study, with its specific issues,
analyses, and potential solutions.
Utility ofthe scenario consequence
approach. The project showed how
specific scenarios can be useful for
analysis. Through specifying details
of the management system that would
be associated with alternate regional
strategies, the specific hydrological,
ecological, and societal consequences
could be evaluated.
Development of a shared scientific vision through workshops and
the charette. Workshops are com-
mon mechanisms to address interdisciplinary issues. This project took
that process one step further by orchestrating major workshops, preparatory research and analysis tasks,
and the culminating charette. Each
workshop began with clearly stated
objectives and products to be gener-
BioScience Vol. 47 No. 8
ated. Workshop reports captured the
essence of the discussions in a detailed format. The charette itself was
most effective, providing the intensity and prolonged focus on the problem that allowed new perspectives to
emerge that otherwise would not have
developed. Expanding this scientific
perspective to a broader, shared vision
among stakeholders is a continuing
process required by ecosystem management principles (IEMTF 1995a,
1995b, US MAB 1994).
Timing. The US MAB core project
benefited from several events over
the past few years concerning both
ecosystem management and the
South Florida environment. The timing was in part fortuitous, and in
part anticipatory by the US MAB
group. Development and application
of ecosystem management approaches were made possible by technological advances in remote sensing, database management, and
modeling and by theoretical advances
in ecological risk assessment. The
continued explosive development of
the South Florida human community and the continuing degradation
of the environment create the imperative for an ecosystems management
framework for South Florida to be
implemented soon if this regional ecosystem is not to be lost irretrievably.
Impact on the decision-making
process. Currently, a complex and
active process is under way to coordinate research and policy issues related to the South Florida environment. This process includes a federal
interagency task force and associated committees, the White House
Task Force on Ecosystem Management (IEMTF 1995a, 1995b); the
Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (Florida
Governor's Commission 1995,1996);
and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Ecosystem
Management Initiative (FDEP 1994).
The US MAB project, although
distinct from each of these, has significantly affected the dialogue of
those governmental deliberations, including recognition of the imperative for an ecosystem management
approach. The scenarios developed
by US MAB provided a potential
win-win situation for ecological and
agricultural sustainability-that is,
developing innovative solutions that
September 1997
agencies themselves might be constrained from offering; as a result,
our scenarios provided a focal point
for the subsequent phase of governmental activities. Thus, US MAB had
the ability to speak as an objective
group both to environmentalist
groups, with the message of the positive role of the sugar industry in the
solution of the environmental problems, as well as to sugar industry
groups, with the message of the necessity for sugar to modify its position to sustain itself.
Pivotal events. Several pivotal
events affected project development
or fundamentally affected the conclusions reached.
• The US MAB group recognized
that there actually is sufficient water
in the South Florida system under
most circumstances to meet the present
and projected future needs of urban
society, agricultural industry, and
the environment, if the proper storage systems were designed. This realization fundamentally changed the
commonly held perspective that the
issue is one of competition for limited water among urban, agricultural,
and ecological needs.
• The group was challenged by a
single scientist who questioned the
assumption of the inherent incompatibility of the sugar industry with
environmental goals, a consistent
theme of environmental groups in
Florida. The group responded to this
challenge by reexamining our assumptions and eventually recognizing the
mutual dependency of ecological and
agricultural sustainability.
• The group recognized that the sugar
industry and associated societal systems are at risk from various factors,
including potential loss of price supports, potential end of prohibitions
on Cuban sugar importation, increase
of soil degradation through oxidation of drained peats, and the almost
inevitable conversion of agricultural
lands into more financially rewarding housing developments. This understanding led to the recognition
that if any human activities are to
occur in the critical lands between
Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades,
the sugar industry is among the most
environmentally benign. This recognition does not mean that sugargrowing practices do not need to be
improved to protect water quality
and hydroperiod, nor does it imply
that some of the acreage devoted to
sugar cultivation could not be converted to more natural systems, but
it does shift the debate toward new
solutions.
• The group recognized that the essence of the Everglades has to be
redefined at a higher level than the
detailed ecological endpoints, articulating those overall characteristics
that make the historical Everglades
what they were ecologically and societally. This recognition did not
negate the detailed ecological endpoints discussions. Instead, it placed
the endpoints in the context of measuring how well an ecosystem management plan is working once it is
implemented, rather than constituting them as the sustainability goals
themselves.
Flexibility. These and other examples highlight the need to be opportunistic and adaptive in the development of the project. The team's
ability to adapt was more than
matched by the flexibility of US MAB
in accommodating changes in approach. Initial assumptions and
methods were occasionally discarded
when they proved insupportable or
inefficient. A reexamination of what
we were doing, the fundamental bases
for the approach, and the plans for
affecting the case study continued
well beyond the initial two major
workshops, up to the time of the
charette. However, because of the
unique perspectives gained at the
charette, we have subsequently focused on further analysis, documentation, outreach to the decision-making community, and presenting and
defending our conclusions. The lesson is adaptability at appropriate
times, and resolution at other times.
Issues of hierarchy. The development of a hierarchical view of ecology during the past decade (e.g.,
O'Neill et al. 1986) was extended by
the US MAB project to include societal systems for managing the environment. The US MAB scientists
highlighted the hierarchical nature
of societal systems and the necessity
for developing governance systems that
are appropriate to the scale and hierarchy of the environment declared.
For example, Florida is fortunate to
509
have water management districts
defined by the boundaries of watersheds (rather than political boundaries), and that scale is appropriate
for many water management decisions. But a federal/state interagency
institution had to be created to address the larger-scale and longer-term
issues of regional sustainability.
Technological tools. The integrated GIS-based database system
was essential. This system, in which
the existing spatially explicit databases generated by various agencies
and academic institutions were collated into commonly used software
on a fast computer platform, allowed
a common framework for bringing
together disparate information bases
through which scientists from diverse disciplines could ask questions
in their own terms and from their
own perspectives. Furthermore, the
graphical representation of data in
real time, while discussions were taking place (especially in generating
maps of various scenarios during the
charette), immensely improved the
ability of decision makers and scientists-even those who had worked
on South Florida issues for years-to
genuinely understand relationships
among systems and consequences of
policies.
Institutional support of us MAR.
One important lesson learned is the
value of the institutional support and
credibility provided by US MAB to the
HDS case study. Following extensive
peer review, US MAB awarded modest funding to the study, and matching
support provided by the university
and institutional affiliates of each
project participant significantly leveraged those resources. More important, US MAB gave the HDS the
scope to develop innovative approaches and ideas, the flexibility
for the project to be modified as it
proceeded, and the standing to gain
recognition among governmental
agencies for the value and validity of
our approach. Less flexible research
funding from more traditional sources
might not have allowed the project to
develop fully. The personal support of
the US MAB executive director and
the present and immediate past chairpersons of the US MAB National
Committee was critical.
The outcome. A central tenet of
US MAB ecosystem management
510
principles is to develop a shared vision of the ecosystem management
approach to environmental decision
making, as well as the specific potential solutions to the problems of
sustainability of the South Florida
ecological and societal systems.
However, we found that the analyses could initially be performed, and
solutions proposed, only by an appropriate scientific group that does
not purport to represent the diversity of stakeholders in the region.
By developing ideas in an open,
scientific forum without agency or
political constraints, much of the
contentious debate typical of regional environmental issues could
be bypassed.
Nature of the problem. A critical
aspect of this case study was the
inherent great interest of the problem, which derives from the importance of the Everglades regional ecosystem; from the criticality of the
moment, at which the future of the
South Florida environment as an ecologically sustainable system is in serious doubt; and from the generic
nature of the problem, in which methodological developments may be
applicable to solving other classes of
environmental problems. Whatever
the motivation, the participants in
the US MAB research project contributed an extraordinary measure
of time, energy, and reflection, all of
which were essential for its success.
Although these lessons are offered
as guidance for other ecosystem
management activities or, more
broadly, for other interdisciplinary
environmental problem solving, we
recognize that many aspects of our
approach are unique to the system
under study or the environmental
decision at hand. Nevertheless, the
time has come to take interdisciplinary discussions beyond the theoretical and into the applied. The process continues, both through the
extension of the US MAB network of
scientists to develop further the ecological sustainability goals and endpoints and to expand considerably
the analyses of societal effects and
feedbacks, and through continued
scientific support to the Governor's
Commission as it is developing its
"preferred alternative" for regional
management (Florida Governor's
Commission 1996, M. Harwell et al.
in press). This continuing process, in
fact, illustrates one of the most important lessons to be gained from the
process: Ecological sustainability of
an ecosystem as valuable and as human-dominated as the South Florida
regional environment requires ongoing scientific research, adaptive
approaches to management, and continued vigilance.
Acknowledgments
This article is contribution number
US MAB HDS 008 of the US Man
and the Biosphere (US MAB) Human-Dominated Systems Directorate (HDS) Series. US MAB is administered by the US Department of State
as a multiagency, collaborative, interdisciplinary research activity to
advance the scientific understanding
of human-environment interactions.
This article does not necessarily represent the policies of US MAB, the
US Department of State, or any member agency of US MAB.
The article derives from the collaborative efforts of many scientists,
from both natural and social scientific disciplines, who participated in
two preliminary workshops (Harwell
and Long 1992) and the Isle au Haut
charette (Harwell et al. 1996). Carlos
Rivero, Allyn Landers, and Steve
Tosini provided GIS support. Winnie
Park and South Florida Water Management District are gratefully acknowledged for providing the map
of South Florida (Figure 1). I particularly wish to thank Ann Bartuska,
Jack Gentile, Chris Harwell, John
Long, Vicky Myers, Bill Solecki, and
two anonymous reviewers for their
comments and ideas for this article.
Funding for this case study has
been provided by grant number 1753400108 to the University of Miami
from the US Department of State,
with subcontracts to the University
of Florida, Florida State University,
State University of New York at
Buffalo, and the University of Maine.
The University of Miami Rosenstiel
School and each subcontracting institution contributed substantial financial and other resources to the
project. Additional funding was provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station
under contract DACW 39-94-K0032 to the University of Miami.
BioScience Vol. 47 No. 8
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