Florida’s Future: Can Conservation Balance Urban Sprawl, Rising Sea Level?

August 29, 2023

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(Solutions from the Land) ... Agricultural and timber lands provide more than just food and other fundamental products. With management, they play important roles in providing clean water, clean air, and a healthy ecosystem good for both people and wildlife.

We need the land—not just for agriculture but for life.

(Jim) Strickland envisions a day when society recognizes the value of agriculture and compensates farmers, ranchers and foresters for delivering ecosystem services. First, agriculture must quantify those ecosystem services through research.

That’s how Florida Climate Smart Agriculture (FLCSA) started, bringing together a diverse and bipartisan group of agricultural leaders. FLCSA, which Strickland co-chairs alongside Lynetta Usher Griner, is working to bring Florida’s farmers, ranchers and foresters to the forefront of resolving food system, energy, environmental and climate challenges.

“We started advocating for studies that show what land mass does for everybody,” says Strickland, listing water quality, water filtration, carbon sequestration, aquafer recharge, wildlife corridors and endangered species habitat as a few examples.

Sea Level 2040 report: Florida’s future

One of these studies is the Florida’s Rising Seas: Mapping Our Future, a joint GIS-based analytical project of the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and 1000 Friends of Florida.

As part of the project, the Sea Level 2040 report paints a picture of what Florida could look like by 2040—with and without efforts to protect natural and agricultural lands.

The report builds on the Florida 2070/Water 2070 report released in 2016, incorporating the impacts of rise in sea level based on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s 2022 intermediate projection of 0.25 meters. This equates to about 1 million acres of Florida land (most of which is already protected) lost and 205,000 residents displaced.

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Strickland, who did his first conservation easement 20 to 24 years ago, says, while they are not the sole answer, conservation easements can be a great tool for keeping land in agriculture. It makes sense, he says, for farmers to continue managing these lands. They can do it cheaper than the state, and the state keeps these businesses on their tax rolls. They also benefit rural economies.

“A conservation easement is basically a purchase of the property’s development rights,” Strickland says. “What I would really like is to be able to show development rights as one strand of that bundle of rights that landowners own.”

Through research, Strickland wants to be able to show that landowners can sequester carbon on different eco-landscapes, whether slough, swamp, marsh, range or orange grove. This would enable them to participate in carbon markets. He wants to be able to identify endangered species that live on the land and for landowners to receive credit in some way for managing for their habitat.

“Let’s do the research and bring the economist down and say, ‘What is this worth?’” Strickland says. It may be payment or tax benefits. In any case, he says: “We need to recognize what we do for society.”

Next steps

The Sea Level 2040 report visualizes the need for society to protect natural and agricultural lands in Florida. In their next phase of work, University of Florida project managers are tasked with working with FLCSA to: READ MORE

The night before the storm: Waiting for Idalia (Solutions from the Land)
Ian upended this middle-class beach town (Politico's Power Switch)
How sea level rise made Idalia’s storm surge worse (Washington Post)
Unpriced climate risk and the potential consequences of overvaluation in US housing markets (Nature Climate Change)
More than 1M people in Miami area face ‘climate gentrification’ — study: A study says 56 percent of Miami-Dade County residents will face pressure to move as rising seas push residents inland to higher ground. (Politico Pro Climatewire)
In Florida, Skyrocketing Insurance Rates Test Resolve of Homeowners in Risky Areas -- Research shows the soaring costs hint at widespread, unpriced risk as the global climate warms, with states like California, Florida and Louisiana hit hardest. (Inside Climate News)
FEMA stuns Florida with pricey hurricane penalty: The agency’s action indicated that Lee County homeowners were skirting federal rules requiring stronger rebuilding after disasters. (E&E News Climatewire)
The Drowning South: Sudden surge in sea level rise threatens the American South (Washington Post)
New Law to Provide Florida Homebuyers With More Transparency on Flood History -- The measure is aimed at educating buyers about the intensifying risks, although there are loopholes. (Inside Climate News)
In the South, Sea Level Rise Accelerates at Some of the Most Extreme Rates on Earth -- The surge is startling scientists, amplifying impacts such as hurricane storm surges and nuisance flooding and testing mitigation measures like the Resilient Florida program. (Inside Climate News)

Excerpt from Politico's Power Switch: Affordable coastal living in much of Florida is becoming a thing of the past — thanks to climate change.

After Hurricane Ian battered middle-class communities last fall in Fort Myers Beach and Cape Coral, along the southern Gulf Coast, many people of modest means have been unable to rebuild their houses to modern building codes — even if they had insurance, Zack Colman reports.

That’s driving out people from neighborhoods where, just decades ago, residents such as teachers and firefighters could afford homes blocks from the beach. Those moving in include wealthy people who are still willing to pay — in cash — for waterfront real estate in a disaster-prone area.

“The whole beach is going to change completely,” said former Fort Myers Beach resident Katherine Light. In May, she sold her parcel — which once held a powder-blue cottage on white stilts — for nearly four times what she had paid for it in the ‘90s.

But even that price — $525,000 from a developer — isn’t on the high end. Some tracts are going for more than $1 million. And, Zack reported, at least one Redfin listing credited last year’s hurricane for creating a “big opportunity” for buyers seeking “choice building sites.”

In an interview with Power Switch, Zack said one of his biggest takeaways from his reporting was that well-intentioned policies have serious social consequences.

“Flood insurance in risky places should be pricey,” he said. “Older homes should be updated with more resilient current codes.”

But government regulations and insurance plans aren’t stopping people from living in dangerous areas, he said. They’re just creating an environment where wealthy people or investors can self-insure or transform what had been residential single-family homes into vacation rentals.

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The average payout for Hurricane Ian victims, as of July 7, was $92,000, Zack said. Even the national flood insurance payment max of $250,000 is too low to rebuild in southwest Florida, he said, especially given newer building codes that reflect the stringent requirements.

“It’s difficult to see how anyone whose home was substantially damaged could rebuild,” Zack said. “And I suppose that’s why many sell, or debate whether they can stick it out in dinged-up or mold-infested homes until their insurance saga settles.” READ MORE