Hydro-Geomorphic Response Of Everglades To Changing Climate And Anthropogenic Activities

Keywords

Asymmetry; Climatic and anthropogenic changes; Everglades; Hydrologic changes; Power spectral density

Abstract

The Everglades has been experiencing major changes, both natural and anthropogenic, such that the landscape is deviating away from its natural equilibrium. The land within the Everglades has undergone severe modifications that may have detrimental effects on wildlife and natural features, such as rivers and landscape connectivity. Here in this study, we focus on understanding and quantifying hydrologic and geomorphic signatures of climatic and anthropogenic changes on the Everglades landscape. For this, in particular, we use available data on natural hydrological processes, such as rainfall, groundwater elevation, streamflow as well as surface elevations and satellite images for three different regions. These regions are categorized as forested, urban (nearby Everglades regions) and transition (in between forested and urban regions). Our results show distinct differences in the statistics of observed hydrologic variables for the three different regions. For example, the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of groundwater elevation for the case of urban region show a shift in mean as well as lower asymmetry as compared to forested regions. In addition, a significant difference in the slopes between smaller and larger scales of the power spectral densities (PSDs) is observed when transitioning from forested to urban. For the case of the streamflow PDFs and PSDs, we observe the opposite trends. Finally, computing the interarrival times of extreme (>95th percentile) events that suggest power-law behavior, the changes in power-law exponents of the hydrologic processes further highlights how these processes differ spatially and how the landscape has to respond to these changes. Quantifying these observed changes will help us develop a better understanding of the Everglades and other wetlands ecosystems for management to future changes and restoration.

Publication Date

12-1-2016

Publication Title

Journal of Hydrology

Volume

543

Number of Pages

861-872

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.11.004

Socpus ID

85003671317 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85003671317

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