Current Human Impacts

As human population continues to grow, more land is needed to supply the new generations with enough resources to live. Due to human impacts, “50% of the original Everglades has been converted into agricultural or urban areas” (Human Impacts) resulting in a drastic change from it’s original natural state. Development of land and agricultural farming are the main human factors that cause complicated issues for the ecosystems in the Everglades. Altered water flow, invasive species, destruction of habitats and polluted water are the results of human expansion into the Everglades.

The Everglades is historically known as a land with swampy marshes that create a perfect habitat for wading birds, alligators and saw grass. In 1948 the Federal Government hired the “Army Corps of Engineers to build 1,400 miles of levees and canals south of Lake Okeechobee to drain 700,000 acres of wetland” (Schmalz) to allow for the land to be developed. This type of development was catastrophic, as human alteration to the natural water flow resulted in a “90% reduction in wading bird populations, 68 plant and animal species threatened or endangered and 1.7 billion gallons of water per day on average lost through discharge to the ocean.” (Restore the Everglades).

Altering water flow has created a chain reaction throughout the Everglades as species cannot adapt quickly enough to the forced change. The effects were first seen in the 1960s when the “the Everglades dried, the marshes burned, and animal populations decreased and suffered reproductive failure” (Kushlan, 113). The wood stork is a native species that nests during the dry season, but with biologically inappropriate water flow resulting in interruption of the drying period, “the nesting population of the storks in Everglades National Park has decreased” as “under these conditions the wood storks abandon their nests and nestlings, or do not nest at all.” (Kushlan, 116).

Controlled water flow is not the only reason habitats are being destroyed as “more habitat destruction in the Everglades is being caused by invasions of exotic plants, such as Australian Melaleuca, which deplete the region’s water resources and squeeze out the native species” (Florida Everglades). Introduction of invasive, exotic species added to the human contamination of the Everglades in their attempt to drain the land for development.

Once the land was drained and altered to fit the needs of urbanization, farms began to degrade the Everglades even more. “Sugar cane is most commonly cultivated, and the effects of fertilizer and pesticides result in widespread degradation throughout the ecoregion” (Everglades) as they cause runoff and are carried throughout the water of the Everglades. This type of agricultural runoff has resulted in “an explosion in the growth of plant varieties that clog open waterways, robbing them of oxygen and crowding out animal life” (Schmalz). In the Everglades the “wetland that had been converted to agricultural use that was releasing phosphorous naturally as its soil decayed” (Schmalz) contributed to the many environmental problems, such as invasive species and habitat destruction. The phosphorus “depleted water quality to the point where the US Federal Government brought a lawsuit against South Florida Water Management District for violating state water quality standards” (Kushlan 109). With noticeable changes in the ecosystem, it is clear that water contamination from agricultural practices is a main cause of the destruction of the Everglades.