Past and Future Impacts of Sea Level Rise on Coastal Habitats and Species in the Greater Everglades (FISCHS)

ABSTRACT: This integrated modeling project merges biological and hydrological models to develop tools to help resource management deal with the projected ecological consequences of of rising sea level in coastal south Florida. The project builds on prior USGS research in support of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). To develop a realistic suite of predictive models, we are: (1) Enhancing a hydrological model to reliably hindcast multi-decadal observed sea level rise (SLR) phenomena; (2) Developing mechanistic models of coastal vegetation change and evaluating past change as a function of past hydrologic conditions; (3) Incorporating episodic disturbance from hurricanes; (4) Using the hydrologic models to simulate variables for spatially-explicit population and habitat suitability index models; and (5) Developing futurecasting capability under projected climate change, SLR, and restoration scenarios.