Wetlands are the most important ecosystems on Earth, which can be found in many parts of the world. However, demand for food and economic development in the last century had driven many wetlands in the world being completely drained for cultivation and to the extent that no longer retain any natural wetland characteristics such as the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) in the United States. The ongoing drainage results in large amounts of peat soil loss and following the decrease of crop production, which has brought the sunset to the agriculture in the EAA. At the same time, it is urgent in South Florida to stop the damaging discharges to the coastal estuaries, to restore the flow of clean water to the Everglades preservation area and to guarantee the freshwater supply in the whole region, which also requires the transformation of the EAA.
This thesis develops an integrated approach for returning the Everglades agricultural lands to nature in order to recover the lost ecological assets in South Florida while balancing the economic value and improving spatial quality. Water is conveyed from lake Okeechobee and adjacent agricultural lands into the restoration area to be retained and purified through bioremediation process. The purified water will be further recharged into the aquifer and restored as sheet flow into the southern Everglades. Raising the water level and connecting with the local topography create conditions for the natural occurrences. The typical landscape of subtleties varies by the centimetre of water level change is brought back and becomes a space for people to seek experience and to engage themselves with the restored natural rhythms, changing over time. This project demonstrates its potential to be expanded and replicated across a variety of agricultural contexts. It is crucial to balance the ecological and economic value, design through different scales, and include a spatial and experiential dimension during the transformation.