Excerpt
Prior to the initiation of major land drainage activities in the early part of this century, the Everglades was a unique subtropical wetland that covered much of southern Florida, making it one of the largest freshwater marshes in the world. Geographically, the Everglades region embraces a variety of landscapes (composite units of topography, drainage, soils, and vegetation) that include freshwater marshes, wetland tree islands, cypress heads (and domes), tropical hardwood hammocks, pinelands, mangrove swamps, coastal saline flats, tidal creeks and bays, and shallow coastal marine waters (Davis 1943). Set against a geomorphic background, the recently defined South Florida Ecosystem (Science Sub-Group 1994) is seen to embrace parts of the Kissimmee River Valley, Lake Okeechobee, the Big Cypress Swamp, the Everglades, Florida Bay, the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, Biscayne Bay, the Florida Keys, and the Florida Reef Tract (Figure 1). All of these units are linked by a heterogeneous system of wetlands that form the Kissimmee-Lake Okee-chobee-Everglades (KLOE) drainage basin. The main watershed, which occupies about 28,200 km2, ranges approximately 449 km north to south and 100 km east to west.
The Miccosukee Indians called the Everglades landscape “Pa hay okee,” meaning grassy water. Marjorie …
Footnotes
Charles W. Finkl is a professor in the Department of Geology at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431.
- Copyright 1995 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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