Suitability of CERP Project Lands for Recreation

The Everglades is an ecosystem in peril. Once it was a vast, free-flowing river of grass extending from the Kissimmee chain of lakes to Florida Bay. These subtropical wetlands supported a rich diversity of plants, fish, and animals. However, humans started to change the Everglades as early as the late 1800s, when primitive canals were dug to begin draining south Florida. These changes continued throughout the 20th century, as more than 1,700 miles of canals and levees changed the landscape, interrupting the Everglades’ natural sheet flow and sending valuable freshwater to sea. More than half of the Everglades wetlands were lost to development.

A plan has been approved to restore the magnificent River of Grass. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) will capture freshwater destined for the sea—the Everglades’ lifeblood—and direct it back to the ecosystem to revitalize it. It will also enhance water supplies and maintain flood control. The CERP has been described as the world’s largest ecosystem restoration effort with 68 projects that cover 16 counties over an 18,000-square-mile area.

These maps show the potential suitability of recreation activities on CERP project lands. Nine recreation activities were selected for evaluation prior to the public outreach phase of the project. Planners selected unique criteria for each activity using land use/land cover data as the base for a weighted spatial overlay analysis. In 2006, the planning team hosted a series of meetings and received public input on existing recreation conditions, needs, trends and issues, as well as on these suitability maps.

Courtesy of GEC Inc., Baton Rouge, Louisiana.