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Engaging Indigenous Communities to Co-Design a Real-time Monitoring Application to Protect their Socio-Cultural and Ecological Areas

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By Community for Data Integration (CDI) March 17, 2022

Everglades tree islands are traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains, but no monitoring tool exists for water managers to protect sites from destructive flooding. We propose stakeholder workshops to codesign a monitoring application with the Tribes.

USGS can move toward environmental justice and data equity by working together with Tribal Nations to produce necessary tools. Tree islands are elevated tree-covered mounds within wetlands that form some of the most biodiverse and socio-culturally revered parts of the Everglades. They are also the traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains. But due to flooding and water management, the islands are shrinking, decaying, and disappearing. Currently no monitoring tool exists, even though Everglades restoration is a multi-billion-dollar project. To address this data inequity, we propose stakeholder workshops with the Tribes to co-design a real-time web app showing tree island health. Decision makers would use the tool to manage water depths to protect these critical sites.

Everglades tree islands are traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains, but no monitoring tool exists for water managers to protect sites from destructive flooding. We propose stakeholder workshops to codesign a monitoring application with the Tribes.

USGS can move toward environmental justice and data equity by working together with Tribal Nations to produce necessary tools. Tree islands are elevated tree-covered mounds within wetlands that form some of the most biodiverse and socio-culturally revered parts of the Everglades. They are also the traditional homes of the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes and contain their ancestral remains. But due to flooding and water management, the islands are shrinking, decaying, and disappearing. Currently no monitoring tool exists, even though Everglades restoration is a multi-billion-dollar project. To address this data inequity, we propose stakeholder workshops with the Tribes to co-design a real-time web app showing tree island health. Decision makers would use the tool to manage water depths to protect these critical sites.

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