Sea level rise presents major challenges to South Florida’s existing coastal water management system due to a combination of increasingly urbanized areas, aging flood control facilities, flat topography, and porous limestone aquifers. For instance, South Florida’s freshwater well field protection areas (left map: pink areas) lie close to the current interface between saltwater and freshwater (red line), which will shift inland with rising sea level, affecting water managers’ ability to draw drinking water from current resources. Coastal water control structures (right map: yellow circles) that were originally built about 60 years ago at the ends of drainage canals to keep saltwater out and to provide flood protection to urbanized areas along the coast are now threatened by sea level rise.
Maps from The South Florida Water Management District.