Engaging Indigenous Communities to Co-Design a Real-time Monitoring Application to Protect Everglades Tree Islands
USGS will collaborate with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes to co-design a dashboard mock-up for a real-time web application that monitors tree island health in the Everglades.
The Science Issue and Relevance: The Greater Everglades is a vast wetland ecosystem, described as a river of grass with water slowly moving southward from central Florida and emptying into Florida Bay. Tree islands, which are elevated tree-covered mounds within the wetlands, are some of the most biodiverse and socio-culturally revered parts of the Everglades. Drier than the surrounding landscape, tree islands are refugia for plants and animals, perform important nutrient and carbon cycling, and provide nesting habitat for many species. Of critical cultural importance, the tree islands were used as the traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains. However, because of flooding and water management issues, degradation and destruction of the tree islands continues. Currently, no monitoring tool exists for water managers to protect these sites from destructive flooding, even though this system has been researched extensively, and Everglades restoration is well-funded.
Methodology for Addressing the Issue: USGS will collaborate with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes to address this environmental justice and data equity issue by co-designing a dashboard mock-up for a real-time web application that monitors tree island health. In collaboration with the Tribes, USGS will co-develop a series of metrics that show real-time and historical flooding status to indicate tree island health. Decision makers at the state and federal levels can use the tool to manage water flows and depths to protect these critical sites.
Future Steps: The next step will be to develop and launch the web application based on the co-produced mock-up. Further refinements can be made to improve the assessment of tree island health, such as adding fire and storm events. Additionally, many tree islands are not included in the current data set, and some island boundaries are not available. Missing tree islands could be digitized and integrated into the existing data set for real-time monitoring.
Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN)
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow Helper
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: Wader Distribution & Evaluation Modeling (WADEM)
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow Marl Prairie Indicator
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: EverSnail
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: Alligator Production Probability Model
Joint Ecosystem Modeling: Greater Everglades Modeling Decision Support Tools
Advanced Technological Solutions in Support of Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystem Science: Joint Ecosystem Modeling (JEM)
USGS will collaborate with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes to co-design a dashboard mock-up for a real-time web application that monitors tree island health in the Everglades.
The Science Issue and Relevance: The Greater Everglades is a vast wetland ecosystem, described as a river of grass with water slowly moving southward from central Florida and emptying into Florida Bay. Tree islands, which are elevated tree-covered mounds within the wetlands, are some of the most biodiverse and socio-culturally revered parts of the Everglades. Drier than the surrounding landscape, tree islands are refugia for plants and animals, perform important nutrient and carbon cycling, and provide nesting habitat for many species. Of critical cultural importance, the tree islands were used as the traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains. However, because of flooding and water management issues, degradation and destruction of the tree islands continues. Currently, no monitoring tool exists for water managers to protect these sites from destructive flooding, even though this system has been researched extensively, and Everglades restoration is well-funded.
Methodology for Addressing the Issue: USGS will collaborate with the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes to address this environmental justice and data equity issue by co-designing a dashboard mock-up for a real-time web application that monitors tree island health. In collaboration with the Tribes, USGS will co-develop a series of metrics that show real-time and historical flooding status to indicate tree island health. Decision makers at the state and federal levels can use the tool to manage water flows and depths to protect these critical sites.
Future Steps: The next step will be to develop and launch the web application based on the co-produced mock-up. Further refinements can be made to improve the assessment of tree island health, such as adding fire and storm events. Additionally, many tree islands are not included in the current data set, and some island boundaries are not available. Missing tree islands could be digitized and integrated into the existing data set for real-time monitoring.