Floridians lives on top of a limestone foundation that was once upon a time was a shallow coral sea and is now riddled with caves. In the film Water’s Journey: Hidden Rivers of Florida there were divers tracking the path of water through underground caves, specifically Florida’s aquifers. They were navigating through the complicated system of undergrounds rivers from where water disappears underground to where it resurfaces in the springs of Florida.
In the state of Florida majority of its drinking waters comes from these deep layers of limestone that actually stores water. Florida has the most springs and are quite unique to the earth’s ecosystem and is the greatest groundwater system on earth. Furthermore, the water from the Florida aquifer
is used for daily things such as cooking, cleaning and bathing. But the biggest utilization of water in Florida is farming which a good thing but it is also creating serious issues that are surfacing in springs. The video portrayed that the aquifer and the springs in Florida is threatened by our daily usage, like over consumption of water, fertilizers and pesticides. One of the main thing that is ruining the aquifer is the intensive number of nitrates that is used in farming which is taking a toll on the springs here in Florida. Even animal waste causes problems due to seeping into the soil beneath. To add, many years people in the state have used these sinkholes to get rid of trash. Also, swallet holes are forming, which causes all of the water that human uses are going into the creek, into our drinking water and also into the aquifer.
Florida became a state in 1845 and almost immediately people began proposing to drain the Everglades. In 1848, a government report said that draining the Everglades would be easy, and there would be no bad effect. Canals and dams were dug to control seasonal flooding. Farmers grew vegetables in the rich soil of the drained land, Ranchers had their cattle graze on the dry land, and new railways lines were constructed to connect communities throughout south Florida; but the ecosystem of the Everglades was not suited for either farming or ranching. The natural cycle of dry and wet seasons brought a devastating series of droughts and floods. These had always been a p...
Nature designed Florida to be one large marine ecosystem. Florida is one big sand peninsula located below the 40th longitudinal North American line. Three bodies of salt water (Gulf of Mexico, Strait of Florida and Atlantic Ocean) surround three out of four directions of Florida. Man-made canals, natural lakes, rivers and estuaries are confined within the State of Florida’s physical boundaries. All of these form an interlocking system of waterways that impact the interconnected marine environment (marine ecosystem). All of Florida’s waterways are connected back to the surrounding bodies of water while passing through Florida’s sub-tropical and temperate zones and impact the delicate marine ecosystem balance. Man and nature are causing a negative impact to this region like never before. Hurricanes, lack of green initiatives, garbage, pollution and the stripping of natural resources for population growth are decimating Florida’s natural ecosystems.
The Everglades, also known as the River of Grass, is one of South Florida's most treasured areas. It is an area still full of wonder and mystery. The Everglades is lined with a specific type of limestone bedrock formed by tiny organisms called byrozoans. These animals, though not related to coral, act like coral by extracting dissolved limestone from the sea water around them and using it to construct protective chambers in which to live. They then attach to various kinds of sea grasses on the ocean floor and coat them as well. Individual chambers combine together to form rock-like structures. Over thousands of years, when South Florida was completely submerged, a vast amount of this limestone combined with other ocean sediments and was laid down over the area now covered by the Everglades. Prior to the draining activities of humans and its use as an agricultural area, the Everglades was flooded about nine to eleven months of the year. It also lost only about 0.03 inches of soil per year. After the drainage the Everglades began losing soil at approximately 1 inch per year. Now, however, it is only losing 0.56 inches per year.
The water supply of Florida is important for a number of reasons. But it is crucial because it not only helped develop human society but it is also continually sustaining it. There are a number of phases and processes that take place to make this happen.
Out of all the technology mentioned in the passage, by far the most advanced has to be the LIDAR. Light Detection and Ranging is used to find objects above the ground quickly and efficiantly. It is the most useful technology used to make new discoveries.
The Florida Everglades is one of the most diverse wetland ecosystems in the United States. These tropical wetlands span an area of more than seven hundred square miles in southern Florida. The term Everglade means river of grass. The system starts in central Florida near Orlando and travels southwest to the tip of Florida. The Everglades has a wet season and a dry season which causes a great change in hydrology. During the wet season the system is a slow moving river that is sixty miles wide and over a hundred miles long. During the dry season water levels drop and some areas will completely dry up. The Everglades has many different aquatic environments all having interdependent ecosystems. The most important factor for all these environments is water. It helps shape the land, vegetation, and all the organism that live in each area. Each environment has particular needs for the organisms living in that area. Throughout the years humans have diverted the water to fit their varying needs. The state has built dikes and levees, dug canals, and have built locks to divert the water. This has all been done to keep areas completely dry for developing and agricultural needs. Today, The Everglades is half the size of its original size. Throughout the years many restoration acts have been created and updated. The Everglades restoration projects have been the most expensive environmental repairs in The United States. This is because The Everglades is one of the three most important wetland areas in the world. The Everglades National Park is the home of thirty six protected species including the West Indian Manatee, the American Crocodile, and the Florida Panther. The Everglades also homes hundreds of species of birds, fish, mammals, and repti...
The Everglades is a diverse ecosystem located in southern Florida, yet urbanization has created a considerable amount of impact that has altered the physical landscape of the region, resulting in a symbiotic environment between humans and nature. Based on geographical research, the original Everglades spanned an area of approximately 12,000km2, and now because of urbanization and agricultural growth in this sub-region the area of the Everglades has been condensed to half of its original size (Willard et al 1-2). The Everglades is actually a sub-region of the Southern Coastlands region of the United States. It is comprised of a unique climate, divided into sub-provinces that create a diverse pallet of environments for wildlife to thrive, yet the impact of human modifications over a period of decades has drastically effected animal populations, and changed the functionality and physical landscape of its expanse. Despite the differences of urbanization and wildlife, major cities and the ecosystem of the Everglades thrive and fuse together to form the diversely changing landscape of the modern Everglades.
In the video series Water’s Journey: Hidden Rivers of Florida, the narrator and scientists discuss the connections between human society above ground and the quality of aquifers below ground. The first part of the video series discusses the preparation and introduction of the mission of Wes Skiles, Tom Morris, and Jill Heinerth. The video begins with discussing connections between human society above ground, and the quality of aquifers below ground and how water is such an important part. The narrator also defines Earth as a water planet, due to the fact that it is the most important resource and all living things depend on it. Then, the movie begins discussing Florida’s aquifers and the process of how water can travel through the aquifers
Water management is one of the most critical environmental issues facing the Florida Everglades at this point in time. The everglades watershed originates in the central Florida Kissimmee River basin north of Lake Okeechobee. Summer thunderstorms would flood this region, the big lake, and extensive areas of everglades marsh. This created a shallow, wide river which flowed slowly south through the everglades to the mangrove estuaries of the Gulf of Mexico. The summer rains would then give way to a ...
Furthermore, when the settlers came to Florida they all had an idea to drain the Everglades. According to the text “Past and Present the Florida Everglades” on page 113 it states, “But when settlers from outside of Florida came to the Everglades, they considered it useless swampland. They had the idea of draining the Everglades.” So
Many animals and people use the Everglades’ water supply as their primary water source. However, the contaminated water is not good for humans or animals to drink. Based on the article “Water Quality Nearly Halts Everglades Restoration” people are concerned about the water quality because of, “...the amount of phosphorus present in the water.” The excessive amount of phosphorus in the water contaminates it and makes unclean water for animals and people to drink. The unclean water supply, which provides almost 7 million with water, has created contaminated water to millions of people and animals. The contaminated water supply has greatly affected animals in the Everglades. The animals in the Everglades, who live off the water, have toxic water to drink. The Everglades’ water supply is filled with chemicals, nitrogen, and phosphorus from fertilizer causing unhealthy water for animals who live in the wetlands. The greatly contaminated water of the Everglades has created toxic water for the park’s animals. (Can We Fix the Water
The water in The Everglades has been tampered with by humans for many decades. First the plan was to “drain to make land more agriculture-ready,” (as stated in Source 3). This was done to help the farmland for the new settlers coming near The Everglades. Yet one of the main problems in replenishing the water supply was the extreme time, cost, and effort into this monumental job. Also, quite a few people had to use the Everglades as there water supply, and even though it was polluted with phosphorous, mercury, and other hazardous
The Everglades has been a foundational part of Florida ever since it was discovered. Its swamps have taken hold of the bottom quadrant of the Florida peninsula with its majestic swamps and exotic wildlife within. However, with Florida's population growth since the turn of the twenty-first century, the Everglades has been threatened by man (Everglades). The Everglades has sustained substantial damage due to over-drainage, runoff of nutrient pollutants, like phosphorus, and the spreading of algae and other plants that upset the ecosystem of the swamp. A greater amount of restoration must be done in the Everglades, otherwise, the whole ecosystem of the swamp could be destroyed.
A team of scientist and specialist travels beneath and above the surface to see where things are going wrong within the cycle of water in Florida. Three people were recognized in the video, one being Tom Morris, who was a cave exploration scientist. The other two were Jill Heinerth and Brian Pes. Heinerth was a technical diving
Drinking water is sourced from bodies of freshwater. Freshwater is quite scarce, but it is even scarcer than one might think: about seventy percent of all freshwater is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland and is unavailable to humans. Most of the remainder is present as soil moisture or lies in deep underground aquifers as groundwater. It is not economically feasible to extract this waste for use as drinking water. This leaves less than one percent of the world’s fresh water available to humans.