Kissimmee River Restoration

The Kissimmee river in Florida is a river that was channelised after severe flooding in the 1940s and to assisst flooding. The 160km meandering river was replaced with a 90km drainage basin . However, this river management had severe effects on the river ecosystem, with the massive lost of wetland habitats. The image on the left is before channelisation took place, on the right is after it took place. Just four years after the completion of the river management, the Kissimmee River Restoration Act was passed, and in 1999 the work started on restoring the river to its former state. 11,000 hectares of wetland have been reinstated, and there has been significant growth in the wildlife population and biodiversity. This is an important case study on the restoration of rivers. This is the Kissimmee river restoration site, and there is also some interesting information here.