The Everglades and Miami, Florida, USA
Agriculture
Cities
Mining
Water
Wetlands
Referred to as the “River of Grass,” the Florida Everglades is one of the world’s largest wetlands. However, they were once much larger. Throughout the 20th century, the region was drained for agriculture and development, and canals and levees were built to manage the water. The area that is protected as a national park, established in 1947, is a fraction of the original extent of the Everglades.
The Everglades is essentially a wide, slow-moving sheet of shallow water, hence the name River of Grass. The water originates at the Kissimmee River in central Florida, drains into Lake Okeechobee, then out into the Everglades. A rich variety of plant and animal habitats occupy this very flat terrain—even small water level changes significantly impact these communities.
Much of the development in the Everglades started long before the Space Age, but notable land changes occurred within the satellite era. This series of Landsat images shows the urban development of the Miami metropolitan area, agriculture, and the extent of land protections of southeastern Florida.
Location
Oct. 22, 2016, Landsat 8 (path/row 15/42) — The Everglades and Miami, Florida, USA
The Everglades and Miami, Florida, USA Additional Imagery & Stories
Agriculture
The fertile muck soils along the south shore of Lake Okeechobee in the Everglades Agricultural Area are intensively farmed. Tomatoes, beans, squash, p...
Canals and Levees
Historically, water flowed slowly southward through the Everglades in a wide swath. Record floods in 1947 and 1948 led to the construction of a massiv...
Limestone Mining
The Everglades sit on top of a bedrock of limestone. Limestone quarries, the dark rectangular shapes just west of the urban areas, provide about half ...
Residential Lakes
A lot of the urban area consists of large planned communities, often for retirees. Many of these communities incorporate artificial residential lakes....
Tree Islands
A unique feature of the Everglades is the dark green teardrop-shaped forms scattered throughout the region. Referred to as hummocks, or “tree islands,...
Turkey Point
There is a notable shape southeast of Homestead on the coast of the Bay of Biscayne. The top right corner of this shape is the location of the Turkey ...
Urban Development
In 1900, southeastern Florida included a few small towns with a population of 3,592 people. Throughout the 20th century, Miami and other nearby towns ...
References
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