Over the past century south Florida has seen a dramatic change in its ecological and hydrological cycles through the development of water management systems, leading to drought, dust storms, habitat loss, and dramatically reduced populations of various fish, plant, and bird species.
It began in the early part of the century, when prospectors and planners began to develop south Florida for residential and agricultural uses. After a series of catastrophic floods and hurricanes, the US Corps of Engineers stepped in and began construction on one of the world's most "successful" water management systems, made up of a series of canals, levees, flood gates and pumping stations. This system ultimately created a fragmented, piece-meal version of the wetlands that once freely flowed over 200 miles from central Florida all the way down into Florida Bay. With the canals diverting water from the Everglades into the cities, along with the disruption of sheet flow by the highways and roads that now sever east from west, and north from south, the Everglades ecosystem has become a crippled version of its former self.
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