Abstract
IntroductionNumerical models are critical for assessing the effects of sea level rise (SLR), hurricanes, and storm surge on vegetation change in the Everglades National Park. The model must be capable of representing short-timescale hydrodynamics, salinity transport, and groundwater interaction. However, there is also a strong need to adapt these numerical models to hindcast past conditions in order to examine long-term effects on the distribution of vegetation that cannot be determined using only the modern record.MethodsBased on parameters developed for a numerical model developed for the recent 1996 to 2004 period, a hindcast model was developed to represent sea level and water management for the period of 1926 to 1932, constrained by the limited hydrology and meteorology data available from the historic past. Realistic hurricane-wind and storm surge representations, required for the hindcast model, are based on information synthesized from modern storm data. A series of simulation scenarios with various hurricane representations inserted into both hindcast and recent numerical models were used to assess the utility of the storm representation in the model and compare the two simulations.ResultsThe comparison of the hindcast and recent models showed differences in the hydrology patterns that are consistent with known differences in water delivery systems and sea level rise. A 30× lower-resolution spatially variable wind grid for the hindcast produced similar results to the original high-resolution full wind grid representation of the recent simulation. Storm effects on hydrologic patterns demonstrated with the simulations show hydrologic processes that could have a long-term effect on vegetation change.ConclusionsThe hindcast simulation estimated hydrologic processes for the 1926 to 1932 period. It shows promise as a simulator in long-term ecological studies to test hypotheses based on theoretical or empirical-based studies at larger landscape scales.
Highlights
Numerical models are critical for assessing the effects of sea level rise (SLR), hurricanes, and storm surge on vegetation change in the Everglades National Park
These tidal levels for the storm surge were applied at the western boundary of the recent simulation with the reduced 4 × 4 wind grid (Simulation recent time period with Wilma storm (RWVL), Table 1)
The new stage is a much better match to the measured stage and was used to represent a synthetic Wilma storm surge in the hindcast simulation
Summary
Numerical models are critical for assessing the effects of sea level rise (SLR), hurricanes, and storm surge on vegetation change in the Everglades National Park. Theoretical and empirical research on mangrove-marsh and mangrove-forest ecotones have identified processes important to non-linear system dynamics, which relate to ecosystem resilience, tipping points for vegetation regime change, and delayed ecosystem effects on the order of years after a particular salinity event (Teh et al 2008; Jiang et al 2012b; Jiang and DeAngelis 2013; Jiang et al 2012a; Jiang et al 2014). Additional research is needed, at larger spatial scales to address regional effects (Hopkinson et al 2008; Heffernan et al 2014) and at long temporal scales to address non-linear system dynamics due to propagating events within a hierarchy of ecological processes (Peters et al 2007). Hydrodynamic numerical models at large spatial scales offer a tool to simulate and study the effects of short-term events on long-term processes
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