The South Florida Ecosystem Portfolio Model

There are intense development pressures in the lands outside of the Urban Development Boundary in Miami-Dade County, Florida, impacting both the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks.

On-going land use/cover changes related to decisions whether to develop/preserve/restore individual parcels will cumulatively affect ecological, environmental, and socioeconomic patterns in complex ways. The U.S. Geological Survey has developed a prototype for a web-enabled geospatial information tool (the South Florida EPM) that screens future land use/cover patterns in terms of user-weighted ecological (local and landscape) criteria, water quality criteria, and socioeconomic indicators. The criteria and indicators are chosen to be sensitive to land use/cover, relevant to decision-makers and stakeholders, and indicative of future trends. An example of user-weighted ecological criteria is shown below, along with the evaluation results.

This project makes use of contributions from conservation ecology, landscape ecology, decision science, real estate economics, ecological economics, urban planning, GIS analysis, and web technologies. The web-based EPM will contribute to improved public understanding and awareness of the complex ecological, environmental, and socioeconomic issues involved in land use decisions in Southeast Florida.

Publications and Websites:

USGS press release: Development and conservation in South Florida: Integrating ecological and economic values for decision support (link: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1715).

Project website: (link: http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/projects/gis_tool/.