Tuesday, December 8, 2015

This article talks about the geographic features of Florida. The natural landscape of Florida, specifically southern Florida, is the everglades. These areas are wet and unpredictable which makes it especially difficult to build structures. The slow, constant flow of water from Lake Okeechobee is a natural phenomenon that disrupts the plan of man.



In order to change this and make the land usable for construction, the Everglades Drainage District (EDD) and the Internal Improvement Fund (IIF) spent about $18 million towards the drainage and maintenance of the land to build structures. People took advantage of this and the water flow and are now growing crops in these areas. Despite an immense growth in the economy, these actions are disturbing the natural ecosystems of this region and we are not sure what long-lasting effects it may have.

 Robert Walker & William Solecki (2004): Theorizing Land-Cover and Land-Use Change: The Case of the Florida Everglades and Its Degradation, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 94:2, 311-328

2 comments:

  1. Is the author pro-land structures because of the increase in crop growth, or anti-land structures because of the disturbance in the ecosystems?

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  2. Would these long-lasting effects on land vary due to climate change, and could that also be mapped by GIS?

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