Historical State of Everglades

Florida Everglades is subtropical wetland in the Southern Florida which is composed of sawgrass marshes, mangroves, wet prairie, tropical hardwood hammock, and fresh water swamp. Florida Everglades covered 11,000 square miles of South Florida before it was damaged and degraded by human impacts. It used to be twice as big as its current size. As one of the 18^th century explorer Hugh Willoughby described, the water of Everglades was ‘healthy and wholesome’ and nutrient poor, as it was not yet impacted by the agricultural and urban runoffs. In addition, the Everglades used to experience frequent large-scale floods. Also,  the depth of water was much higher than current depth, the ecosystem was able to operate its natural water filtration system with its decomposing bacteria.