FLORIDA BAY RESEARCH PROGRAMS AND THEIR RELATION TO THE COMPREHENSIVE EVERGLADES RESTORATION PLAN
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Washington, D.C.
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Supported by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, U.S. Department of the Interior, under assistance of Cooperative Agreement No. 5280-9-9029. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.
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COMMITTEE ON RESTORATION OF THE GREATER EVERGLADES ECOSYSTEM (CROGEE)1
JEAN M.BAHR2, Chair,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
SCOTT W.NIXON2, Vice-Chair,
University of Rhode Island, Narragansett
JOHN S.ADAMS,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
LINDA K.BLUM2,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
PATRICK L.BREZONIK2,
University of Minnesota, St. Paul
FRANK W.DAVIS,
University of California, Santa Barbara
WAYNE C.HUBER2,
Oregon State University, Corvallis
STEPHEN R.HUMPHREY,
University of Florida, Gainesville
DANIEL P.LOUCKS,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
KENNETH W.POTTER,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
LARRY ROBINSON,
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tallahassee
REBECCA R.SHARITZ,
Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Aiken, South Carolina, and University of Georgia, Athens
HENRY J.VAUX, JR.
University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Oakland
JOHN VECCHIOLI,
U.S. Geological Survey (ret.), Odessa, Florida
JEFFREY R.WALTERS,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
NRC Staff
STEPHEN D.PARKER, Director,
Water Science and Technology Board
DAVID J.POLICANSKY, Associate Director,
Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
WILLIAM S.LOGAN2, Senior Staff Officer,
Water Science and Technology Board
PATRICIA JONES KERSHAW, Staff Associate,
Water Science and Technology Board
WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD
RICHARD G.LUTHY, Chair,
Stanford University, Stanford, California
JOAN B.ROSE, Vice Chair,
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
RICHELLE M.ALLEN-KING,
Washington State University, Pullman
GREGORY B.BAECHER,
University of Maryland, College Park
KENNETH R.BRADBURY,
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, Madison
JAMES CROOK,
CH2M Hill, Boston, Massachusetts
EFI FOUFOULA-GEORGIOU,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
PETER GLEICK,
Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, Oakland, California
JOHN LETEY, JR.,
University of California, Riverside
DIANE M.MCKNIGHT,
University of Colorado, Boulder
CHRISTINE L.MOE,
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
ROBERT PERCIASEPE,
National Audubon Society, Washington, D.C.
RUTHERFORD H.PLATT,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
JERALD L.SCHNOOR,
University of Iowa, Iowa City
LEONARD SHABMAN,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
R.RHODES TRUSSELL,
Montgomery Watson, Pasadena, California
Staff
STEPHEN D.PARKER, Director
LAURA J.EHLERS, Senior Staff Officer
JEFFREY W.JACOBS, Senior Staff Officer
WILLIAM S.LOGAN, Senior Staff Officer
MARK C.GIBSON, Staff Officer
STEPHANIE E.JOHNSON, Consulting Staff Officer
M.JEANNE AQUILINO, Administrative Associate
ELLEN A.DE GUZMAN, Research Associate
PATRICIA JONES KERSHAW, Study/Research Associate
ANITA A.HALL, Administrative Assistant
ANIKE L.JOHNSON, Project Assistant
JON Q.SANDERS, Project Assistant
BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND TOXICOLOGY
GORDON ORIANS (Chair),
University of Washington, Seattle
JOHN DOULL (Vice Chair),
University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City
DAVID ALLEN,
University of Texas, Austin
INGRID C.BURKE,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins
THOMAS BURKE,
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
WILLIAM L.CHAMEIDES,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
CHRISTOPHER B.FIELD,
Carnegie Institute of Washington, Stanford, California
DANIEL S.GREENBAUM,
Health Effects Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts
BRUCE D.HAMMOCK,
University of California, Davis
ROGENE HENDERSON,
Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
CAROL HENRY,
American Chemistry Council, Arlington, Virginia
ROBERT HUGGETT,
Michigan State University, East Lansing
JAMES H.JOHNSON,
Howard University, Washington, D.C.
JAMES F.KITCHELL,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
DANIEL KREWSKI,
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
JAMES A.MACMAHON,
Utah State University, Logan
WILLEM F.PASSCHIER,
Health Council of the Netherlands, The Hague
ANN POWERS,
Pace University School of Law, White Plains, New York
LOUISE M.RYAN,
Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts
KIRK SMITH,
University of California, Berkeley
LISA SPEER,
Natural Resources Defense Council, New York, New York
Staff
JAMES J.REISA, Director
DAVID J.POLICANSKY, Associate Director and Senior Program Director for Applied Ecology
RAYMOND A.WASSEL, Senior Program Director for Environmental Sciences and Engineering
KULBIR BAKSHI, Program Director for the Committee on Toxicology
ROBERTA M.WEDGE, Program Director for Risk Analysis
K.JOHN HOLMES, Senior Staff Officer
SUSAN N.J.MARTEL, Senior Staff Officer
SUZANNE VAN DRUNICK, Senior Staff Officer
RUTH E.CROSSGROVE, Managing Editor
Preface
This report is a product of the Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem (CROGEE; an acronym list is given in Appendix A), which provides consensus advice to the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (“Task Force”). The Task Force was established in 1993 and was codified in the 1996 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA); its responsibilities include the development of a comprehensive plan for restoring, preserving and protecting the South Florida ecosystem, and the coordination of related research. The CROGEE works under the auspices of the Water Science and Technology Board and the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the National Research Council.
The CROGEE’s mandate includes providing the Task Force not only with scientific overview and technical assessment of the restoration activities and plans, but also providing focused advice on technical topics of importance to the restoration efforts. One such topic was to examine “the linkage between the upstream components of the greater Everglades and adjacent coastal ecosystems.” This report addresses this issue by breaking it down into three major questions:
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What is the present state of knowledge of Florida Bay (“the Bay”) on scientific issues that relate to the success of the overall CERP?
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What are the potential long-term effects of Everglades restoration as currently designed on the nature and condition of the Bay?
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What are the critical science questions that should be answered early in the restoration process to design a system that benefits not only the terrestrial and freshwater aquatic Everglades but the Bay as well?
This study was inspired in part by the 2001 Florida Bay and Adjacent Marine Systems Science Conference held on April 23–26, 2001 in Key Largo, Florida. An overlapping meeting of the CROGEE was held at the same location on April 26–28, 2001. The conference was organized by the Program Management Committee (PMC) of the Florida Bay and Adjacent Marine Systems Science Program (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/flbay/). The PMC organized the conference around five questions suggested by the Florida Bay Science Oversight Panel (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/flbay/oversight_panel.html). These questions related to circulation, salinity patterns, and outflows of the Bay; nutrients and the nutrient budget; onset, persistence and fate of planktonic algal blooms; temporal and spatial changes in seagrasses and the hardbottom community; and recruitment, growth and survivorship of higher trophic level species (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/ocd/sferpm/stratpla.html). Some of these issues are discussed in the present report. However, as noted earlier, this report focuses on the subset of questions that relate to linkages between the Bay and the upstream portion of the Everglades system that arose at the 2001 Florida Bay Conference. As such, many science issues of importance to the health of the Bay but not directly related
to the CERP are not discussed here, nor is this report intended to be a comprehensive review of the literature.
The conference provided an excellent environment to engage Bay scientists formally and informally during poster sessions, “synthesis sessions,” and other venues. This report is based on an analysis of information presented at the Florida Bay Conference and a review of pertinent peer-reviewed literature.
The CROGEE is grateful for the assistance of many individuals during the data collection phase of this report. These include Peter Ortner (NOAA), South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Working Group liaison to CROGEE; Terrence “Rock” Salt, Executive Director of the Task Force; members of the Program Management Committee and Florida Bay Science Oversight Panel of the Florida Bay and Adjacent Marine Systems Science Program; and the many scientists at the conference who freely shared their insights into the complex issues regarding the ecology, hydrology, and water quality of the Bay. I would also like to thank the CROGEE members for their work on this report, especially a subgroup led by Wayne Huber and including Linda Blum, Patrick Brezonik, and Scott Nixon who took the lead in drafting the report with assistance from NRC staff officer Will Logan.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC’s Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Donald F.Boesch, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Christopher Field, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Mandy Joye, University of Georgia
W.Michael Kemp, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Diane McKnight, University of Colorado
Len Pietrafesa, North Carolina State University
Joe Rudek, North Carolina Environmental Defense
Sybil Seitzinger, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO
Y.Peter Sheng, University of Florida
William Wise, University of Florida
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Jerry Robert Schubel, President and CEO, Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California. Appointed by the National Research Council, Dr. Schubel was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
Jean M.Bahr, Chair
Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem