EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Modeling soil subsidence in a subtropical drained peatland. The case of the everglades agricultural Area

Andres F. Rodriguez, Stefan Gerber and Samira H. Daroub

Ecological Modelling, 2020, vol. 415, issue C

Abstract: The Everglades, located in South Florida, USA, have been accumulating organic soils (peats) for 5000 years. The northern portion of the natural Everglades, called the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), has been drained for more than 100 years and has experienced soil subsidence since then. Rates of soil subsidence in the EAA have changed over time, due mostly to changes in land use and water management. The purpose of this study was to adapt a model of peat dynamics to the EAA based on historic and current data to explore parameter estimation and to identify information/parameters that might be useful to model and predict soil subsidence in organic soils. Model optimization predicted a predrainage peat thickness of 2.57 m and a current subsidence rate of 0.65 cm yr−1. Model evaluation indicated that increasing biomass input to the soils from the current dominant crop (sugarcane) had the greatest potential to reduce future subsidence, while increasing water table depth or reducing the aerobic decomposition rate could also help reduce subsidence. To decrease subsidence in the EAA and improve soil conservation, farm practices that increase biomass input and water table depth would need to be implemented. Adding a seasonal water table component to this model and improve estimates of biomass input to the soil are the next steps to improve predictions of soil subsidence in the EAA under alternative management scenarios.

Keywords: Drained peatland; Soil subsidence; Peat model; Compaction; Soil conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380019303679
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:415:y:2020:i:c:s0304380019303679

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.108859

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu (repec@elsevier.com).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:415:y:2020:i:c:s0304380019303679