March 11, 2025
By Dr. Steve Davis, Chief Science Officer
On the Road to Everglades Restoration and Protection
Believe it or not, science is analogous to driving a car. Starting the car, shifting gears, turning, accelerating, and braking are all actions we take to reach our destination. However, there is much more data transfer and processing in your daily commute than you recognize. You signal that you are turning or braking, and nearby cars respond accordingly. You turn on your wipers when it is raining and set wiper speed to rainfall intensity. You adjust the AC and vents because the windshield is fogging over, and you change the radio station because your teenager drove the car yesterday. Even before you back out of the driveway, you adjust your mirrors and seat to your liking. Also, your teenager didn’t fill the gas tank, so the low-fuel signal is flashing, and you desperately need to find a gas station.
The fact is, we input, receive, and process data nearly every second when we drive, which results in an everchanging environment around us. For example, you see in your rearview mirror that the car behind you is getting too close for comfort and the headlights are flashing. Interpretation of those data leads you to conclude “he’s a maniac!” You immediately decide to change lanes to avoid being rear-ended.
While looking in your rearview mirror is certainly important to avoiding potential conflicts like this, you must also pay attention to what lies ahead and decide whether you should slow down, accelerate, or exit.
In addition to these real-time adjustments, we also process and evaluate outputs, like when you decided to take Alligator Alley as opposed to Tamiami Trail on a drive to Naples. You arrived 30 minutes early, but your blood pressure was elevated and you burned half a tank of gas. You conclude that Alligator Alley is faster, but Tamiami Trail is more reliable, relaxing, and requires less fuel. The choice here exemplifies a desire to optimize your condition based on circumstances. If you are in a hurry and have a full tank, take Alligator Alley and hope there are no accidents. If you have the time, take Tamiami Trail.
You may not know it, but our lives and, especially, our commutes are increasingly aided by a new input of data via Artificial Intelligence (AI). Whether it is a new Spotify playlist that anticipates songs you like, assistance you request from Siri to find the nearest gas station, or the shortest path to your destination plotted by Google maps, AI tools are available to make regular tasks and decision making more convenient and tailored to our specific needs and interests. Although AI is far from perfect, it saves time and provides us with reasonable, easy-to-generate options that did not previously exist.
If all of this resonates with you, then trust me when I say that much of the science we generate at The Everglades Foundation is no different in that it follows an analogous
set of rigorous looking-back and looking-ahead operations. However, our scientists are often driving multiple “vehicles” simultaneously. We are also mechanics, working “under the hood” to diagnose problems, make necessary repairs, and optimize engine performance. Instead of cars, we operate a large suite of computer models and perform an array of data synthesis and processing routines. Oftentimes, we build our own “cars” (i.e., models) or create “car parts” (i.e., scripts or codes) to optimize performance and save time. In addition, we are increasingly relying on AI-based tools to aid us in our journey. Our science team’s destinations are always the same: Everglades restoration and protection. For examples of how and when we get there, read on!
Restoration
The Everglades Foundation’s science team continues to drive development of major Everglades restoration projects, including the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP), which had its groundbreaking in July of 2024. With a cost-effective plan that we helped to shape, WERP’s remaining roadblock is ensuring water quality protection in Big Cypress National Preserve when the project is constructed years down the road. To get ahead of this potential problem, we modeled how WERP infrastructure will affect phosphorus concentrations and identified remedies that would ensure we arrive safely at our destination—a restored ecosystem with clean water. We shared our results with planning authorities and published our findings in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Our work also identified the need for a science-based water quality target for Big Cypress National Preserve. As a result, we are collaborating with government, tribal, and academic scientists to establish this target through field-based experiments.
Operational planning for the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP) just began and will produce a rulebook for operating the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir in conjunction with other features, including Miami Canal backfill, decompartmentalization of Water Conservation Areas 3A and 3B, and the bridges of Tamiami Trail. This rulebook will decide how much clean freshwater Everglades National Park will receive and when it will be delivered. From the outset, we stressed the need to understand the combined impacts of sea level rise and freshwater flows on coastal wetland salinity, as this will be an important indicator of restoration success. Specifically, we called for expanded use of the Biscayne and Southern Everglades Custom Transport (BISECT) model, which simulates wetland salinity and allows for more accurate wetland vulnerability forecasting. Aside from the developer, our science team is the only entity that can adapt and run BISECT. In response to our recommendation, agencies are now considering wetland salinity modeling in this important CEPP process.
Protection
While doing this important work, we continue to look down the road to understand the impacts of climate change and sea level rise on a restored Everglades. We are also looking “under the hood” to improve our modeling efficiency with optimization processes and scripts. The goals are to reduce run time and more rapidly post-process model outputs and synthesize hydrological and ecological metrics.
We are increasingly expanding our usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to modeling and streamlining data organization and synthesis, especially as it pertains to climate change. We are adding to our suite of ecological modeling tools by developing new peat soil models and incorporating a variety of species-specific and community-level models to our toolset. This allows us to create and model new restoration and climate change scenarios, fully evaluate output from both a hydrological and ecological perspective, and make immediate agency recommendations to improve performance of their project planning efforts.
The Everglades Foundation’s science doesn’t stop at the Everglades. Our work bridges restoration of the Everglades to our human communities through resiliency planning efforts. These will protect water supplies, reduce flood risk, and improve water quality and well-being by providing more nature-based solutions that bring the Everglades to our urban areas. With our economic expertise, we can also translate our science into
economic outputs that resonate with decision-makers, including benefit-to-cost ratios, resource valuations, and an improved understanding of the value of clean water and a restored Everglades to Americans.
The road to restoration is a long one, but we are beginning to see a restored Everglades on the horizon thanks to a steady source of funding from Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. We will maintain course and keep our foot on the accelerator.
Read our 2024 Science Insider magazine: https://www.evergladesfoundation.org/scienceinsider
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