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A satellite image of south Florida Photo / Landsat Project, USGS

Creating a Sustainable Future:
The SNRE Program in Land Use

By Stephen S. Mulkey, PhD

In July 2005, I went with my family for a weekend at the beach near Jacksonville, Fla. It had been only five years since I last saw this stretch of coast, and I was amazed by the rate and extent of development in the area. Not only was the beachfront property dramatically different, with half a dozen new high rises under construction, but the landscape to the west of the Intracoastal Waterway was now home to new condominiums, apartment complexes, and residential neighborhoods. Coffee shops, grocery stores, and restaurants seemed to have sprouted at every major intersection, and the remaining parcels of woodland were festooned with flagging tape and fluorescent paint, indicating that their fate was sealed. Aware of the scarcity of fresh water in the St. Johns River Water Management District, I mused aloud to my family, "I wonder where they are getting the water for all this development?"

The scene in Duval County is typical of much of Florida. Recently, one of my fervently green colleagues remarked, "It's all over but the crying except for parts of north Florida," referring to the remaining possibilities for managing the state's growth. Perhaps, but I am not willing to concede that it is too late to come up with sustainable solutions for even the most developed part of downtown Miami.

Florida is a bellwether growth state, with its population projected to grow by 11.5 million over the next 25 years, doubling by 2050, and soon becoming the third largest state in the nation (US Census Bureau). As part of this dramatic growth, Florida's demography will continue to be highly dynamic, with high death rates and high birth rates. We also have one of the highest immigration and the third highest emigration rate in the nation. It is clear to even the most casual consumer of the popular press that development prospects are increasingly constrained by the natural and existing built environment (e.g., land, water, storm water flows, power, transportation costs, amenities, existing development, agriculture). Many of Florida's agricultural landholders are looking for ways to keep the land in production, yet face increased pressure to sell or develop due to skyrocketing land prices in recent years. This unprecedented growth is occurring smack in the middle of hurricane alley, where 80 percent of the population lives within 50 miles of a coastline.

UF Program in Land Use Dynamics

In August, SNRE management began drafting our strategic plan for development of academic and research programs [SNRE Action Plan 2006-2011 ] for the next five years. It was clear to us that the University of Florida housed an impressive array of research talent germane to creating a sustainable future for our state and beyond. We decided to make our top priority the creation of a program in land use dynamics, based on the premise that how land is occupied is the single most important determinant of sustainability. Although growth management in Florida is a pressing issue, we envision the SNRE program in Land Use Dynamics will include academic groups working on this issue anywhere in the world, examining prehistoric as well as modern landscapes.

A UF Faculty Work Group in Land Use has been assembled from about a dozen departments, including almost 40 faculty with research interests relevant to this area. We are seeking a new interdisciplinary synthesis of the social and so-called hard sciences, bringing diverse academic enterprises to the same table in an effort to speak a common language. These disciplines include, but are not limited to:

• Land use ecology
• Planning, design, construction, and management of the built environment
• Energy systems and energy distribution
• Natural resource valuation
• Policy, institutional, and legal processes
• Human demographics and social organization
• Emerging technologies and their associated business applications

The Work Group's goals include developing institution-wide extramural funding initiatives for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and private foundations. We hope to develop a proposal for a UF state legislative budget request to recruit innovative researchers in the social, biological, and engineering sciences to help build the Land Use Dynamics program.

A spectrum-analysis image of the Everglades. Photo / USGS

A Florida Land Use Institute

Last fall, colleagues at the New College of Florida expressed an interest in our ideas and approached us with their vision of creating an "uplands ecology institute." Together we developed a proposal to create a land use institute dedicated to the proposition that our human culture can be integrated into the ecology of Florida in a sustainable fashion while fostering economic development. The institute will provide unbiased, scientifically based best-practices advice to state and local governments and the private sector for appropriate land use. Advice will focus on energy-efficient building design, optimal use of natural resources, efficient configuration of communities, and transport strategies. It will emphasize solutions with the best potential for sustaining Florida's growing population, including the wealthiest and poorest of citizens. The institute will provide a national forum on sustainable growth by hosting an annual symposium emphasizing state-of-the-art reviews of optimal land and energy use. New product development and technological advancements will be featured.

Our proposal to create the land use institute has acquired traction over the last few months. In December, the Sarasota County Commission voted to commit $2 million in cash and land valued at approximately $4 million to the proposed institute [Sarasota Herald-Tribune story ]. Recently, foundations and private donors have expressed considerable interest, and amounts discussed with them range from $1.5 million to more than $4 million. The startup budget for the institute is over $16 million, including construction of labs, offices, a field station, and a research greenhouse.

In February, we met with Gov. Jeb Bush and explained our idea to him. He encouraged us and recommended that we apply for funding through the state's Centers of Excellence program, which is currently being revitalized with legislative bills introduced in both houses that would fund the program at $100 million. Our conclusion from this meeting was that his interest was genuine, and we are moving forward to develop a proposal for the Centers of Excellence program in fiscal year 2007. UF President Bernie Machen has been encouraging and has expressed his willingness to consider making the land use institute a high priority for the next legislative session.

Living in the Solution

As a professor in the classroom, I have come to realize that fear of environmental Armageddon does little to motivate people to take action. The problems are simply too grand in scope, and most folks are primarily concerned about how to pay this month's bills. Moreover, it can be argued that our present quality of life is better than ever before in the broad sweep of human history. So why should we worry about sustainability? So far, so good, right?

A business-as-usual approach ignores the reality of our situation both globally and here in Florida. With the current rate of growth in Florida, this attitude invites disaster. Our best experts are telling us that problems such as climate change, sea level rise, loss of biodiversity, and population growth are real, and that it is urgent we take action to ensure a sustainable future. Wade Davis, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, put it this way:

The call to action for sustainable solutions was loud and clear at the January 2006 meeting of the National Council for Science and the Environment in Washington, D.C. Speakers emphasized that it is time to stop living in the problem, and there was a consensus that our elected officials are actively seeking solutions. Numerous exciting and innovative programs were discussed, and I left the meeting full of ideas for the SNRE land use program. The positive interest from many sectors around the state (e.g., developers, builders, planners, academia, governmental staff, elected officials) in our effort to create a land use institute for Florida is evidence that the worm has indeed turned, and the time is right for new initiatives.

Academics do not set policy, and we are not paid or elected to do so. Our job is to come up with the best science to apply to the problems and then to communicate this science with clarity to those who make policy. It is true that the political process sometimes ignores science, but this is often because scientists do not speak the same language as policy-makers. They do not hear viable options when we speak. It is essential for us to include economic constraints and stakeholder interests in the formulation of scientific advice, so that the science gets translated into solutions. I hope that by fostering a new interdisciplinary synthesis of ideas that includes academicians who understand land use policy and institutional processes, we can offer scientific solutions that are workable in our present economic and political systems.

Postscript: Seeing Green

On March 17, I attended the Florida Symposium on Strategies for Regional Cooperation in Miami (sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, a national not-for-profit education and research organization with chapters throughout the nation). Most of the symposium was devoted to outlining strategies for regional cooperation to support economic growth, but there were precious few specific suggestions for realizing growth in an environmentally sustainable manner. Gov. Bush delivered the keynote address in which he emphasized the importance of the economy stating, "We are in danger of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs." By this he meant that the vibrant economy of the state is critically dependent upon Florida's storied, sun-washed quality of life and its natural environment, now reeling from multiple assaults. Closing the conference, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Interior Nathaniel Reed delivered an impassioned broadside for the environment, citing the hurricane-driven overflow of "a toxic witches' brew" from Lake Okeechobee and algal blooms on the Indian River as two recent environmental disasters.

I left the conference convinced once again that so long as saving the environment is cast in opposition to economic growth, there will be little political will to implement the necessary reforms. Yet neither market madness nor left-wing utopian ideals are viable options for our future. As E. O. Wilson put it, "It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity..is how to bring a better quality of life..without wrecking the environment entirely in the process." The dearth of explicit solutions evident at the conference shows that policy-makers in Florida urgently need new ideas to make economic growth consistent with environmental preservation. I believe that members of the academic community must come together to fill this void and that the land use program is one model for the delivery of this service.

To this end, environmental thinkers are beginning to see green in a new way. Recently, the editors of Grist argued that the real engine of environmental progress will not be government regulation but imagination and entrepreneurship. Ecological principles, they argue, should be seen as "design challenges" rather than "moral prohibitions." They predict a new industrial revolution and economic expansion based on eliminating waste and new ways of resource valuation. The foundation of such a revolution must be sound science, and it is our job to provide the best science available.

Contact
Dr. Stephen S. Mulkey
smulkey@ufl.edu

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