Restoring what mankind destroyed: Everglades edition

 Mankind has a long and dark history of destroying many of Earth's natural habitats. One of the most prevalent places is throughout the United States, particularly the Everglades of South Florida.  The Everglades used to make up a majority of Florida and served as a massive drainage system from Lake Okeechobee all the way to Florida Bay. This enormous area served as a habitat for countless different species of plants and animals, many of which cannot be found anywhere else on earth and depend on the Everglades for survival. Once humans began to inhabit and industrialize Florida for living and farming, they began to destroy many of the original Everglade's habitats and many of the species that came along with it. One change, in particular, that has had a massive impact on the ecosystem is redirecting the flow of water that historically went through the everglades to dump out into the Gulf Of Mexico along the west coast of Florida instead of into Florida Bay at the southern portion of Florida. This had led to drastic changes to both the Everglades ecosystems as a whole, as well as the western coast of Florida where the new flow of fresh water is directed to. 

Pictured above is a comparrison of what the original flow of the Everglades looked like before human settlement, what the flow is currently like after human settlement and diverging of the water from the southern coast of Florida to the west coast, and what the flow will look like after the restoration of everglades habitats is complete. The restoration of the Everglades is a topic that many people have been attempting to take action on for several decades now, however, no real action has yet to be taken. This restoration will bring back a majority of the destroyed everglades habitats while still keeping human settlements throughout much of south Florida.

 This is believed to have several advantages and disadvantages if it is to go through. For example, many of the red tides caused by the high freshwater flow along the west coast of Florida would go away, as the increased level of pollutants from freshwater is one of the main causes for the algae blooms and red tides. However, many of the species at the south end of florida have adapted to the level of salinity present, and it is likely that the redirection of freshwater back to the south coast of Florida would have a negative impact on their populations. Some of these species include the Florida Spiny Lobster, as well as the American Crocodile, a critically endangered species. Due to this, humans need to find a careful balance to prevent any drastic changes taking place at the south coast of Florida and it is likely that the restoration of the everglades owuld have to happen over an extended period of time in order to prevent too drastic of changes in salinity and water level.

Pictured above is an example of the deadly red tide that occurs rather frequently off the west coast of Florida, mostly due to the increased flow of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico.