November 25, 2015 - The following update was submitted by Jillian Drabik, an Ecosystem Science and Policy doctoral student at the University of Miami, on the status of a project on the South Florida Water, Sustainability and Climate Project funded by NSF and USDA and led by FIU:
Over the past twelve months we have made steady progress toward our project objectives. In addition to working toward individual and task group goals, we are also working within the context of the larger project goals. These goals are to develop: 1) a hydro-economic model for South Florida, 2) new information on the economic value of ecosystem services that can be used in modeling exercises, 3) management schemes to increase the resilience of the system to climate change and sea level rise, 4) our understanding of cognitive and perceptual biases in risk assessment and decision-making, and 5) adaptive management plans that optimize economic productivity, the value of ecosystem services, and which foster sustained public support in South Florida. Significant progress has been made on these objectives, including the release of the downscaled climate data for South Florida, further refinement of the penalty functions, and early discussion of selecting scenarios to examine with the hydro-economic model.
Over the next several months, the primary goal is to fully develop the different penalty functions and further engage with stakeholder groups for model input and feedback. Research in other areas including ecosystem service valuation, fisheries evaluation, and the decision and behavioral sciences continues to progress.
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South Florida Water, Sustainability and Climate Project Update
The Florida Climate Institute (FCI) is a multi-disciplinary network of national and international research and public organizations, scientists, and individuals concerned with achieving a better understanding of climate variability and change.