Description: The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is a massive environmental effort encompassing many organizations and projects. Coordination of the projects is one of the main objectives, and GIS is a key technology to coordinate the work. This coverage is an official map of the boundaries of the CERP projects, intended to be used by all researchers and collaborators in the CERP process.Attribution on the map shows the project names, CERP Project ID, key contacts, and other critical information for over 80 different projects. Additional information for each project and for the many programs involved is available on the internet at referenced sites - in particular www.evergladesplan.org. The updated version of this coverage is maintained by the Land Acquisition Program on a program unix server, and named cerp_bnd. The official layer name in the GIS library will be 'bdwmdcrp'.The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP or the Plan) provides connectivity between diverse and significant habitats of the South Florida ecosystem, including the Everglades, which encompasses 18,000 square miles from Orlando to the Florida Reef Tract. Everglades National Park, a significant portion of the greater Everglades Ecosystem, is a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Preserve, and a Wetland of International Importance. The Everglades and the South Florida ecosystem are affected by competing demands for recreation, development, and natural and commercial resources, and include some 68 federally listed threatened and endangered plants and animals. First authorized by Congress in 1948, the Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) Project expanded the existing network of canals, levees, water storage areas and water control structures. Project objectives included flood control, regional water supply, prevention of saltwater intrusion, preservation of fish and wildlife, recreation and navigation. In fulfilling these objectives, the project has had unintended adverse effects on the natural environment that constitutes the Everglades and South Florida ecosystem. As a result, in 1996, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was directed to develop a comprehensive plan to restore, preserve and protect the South Florida ecosystem while providing for the water-related needs of the region. The resulting plan submitted to Congress on July 1, 1999, is called CERP and consists of structural and operational modifications to the C&SF Project. CERP was approved as a framework for the restoration of the natural system as Section 601 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000). The Plan consists of 68 components to restore, preserve and protect the South Florida ecosystem while providing for other water-related needs of the region, including water supply and flood protection. The Plan’s components will be implemented over an approximately 40-year period. Together, these components are expected to benefit the ecological functioning of more than 2.4 million acres of the South Florida ecosystem by improving urban and agricultural water supply, deliveries to coastal estuaries, and regional water quality conditions, while maintaining existing levels of flood protection. Section 601(h)(3) of WRDA 2000 required the Secretary of the Army, with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Interior and the Governor of Florida -- after an opportunity for public notice and comment -- to promulgate programmatic regulations to ensure that the goals and purposes of the Plan are achieved, and to establish the processes necessary for implementing the Plan. The final programmatic regulations became effective December 12, 2003, as Title 33, Part 385, of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Copyright Text: South Florida Water Management District, in collaboration with other agencies