Since 2014, the stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has been decimating corals in the Caribbean. Although the trigger of this outbreak remains elusive, evidence suggests waterborne ...sediment-mediated disease transmission. The outbreak reportedly initiated in September 2014 at a reef site off Virginia Key (VKR), during extensive dredging operations at the Port of Miami. Here we use a high-resolution ocean model to identify the potential driver of the outbreak by simulating the dispersal of dredged sediments, wastewater plumes and disease agents. Our results suggest that VKR could have been impacted by fine sediments produced by dredging operations, especially those involving non-conventional rock-chopping techniques. Wastewater contamination was unlikely. Additionally, our connectivity analysis indicates potential disease transmission from other affected reefs to VKR. Our results therefore suggest that dredging operations might be responsible for the onset of the epidemics. This underscores the need for stricter operational guidelines in future dredging projects.
•We simulated dredged sediment plumes dispersal during the Port of Miami expansion.•Corals were most strongly impacted by fine-grained sediment plumes.•Non-conventional dredging operations impacted the reef where SCTLD was first observed.•Waterborne disease transmission from other impacted reefs to that reef was also possible.•Contamination by wastewater from a leaking pipe is unlikely.
As a future warm-climate analog, much attention has been directed to studies of the Last Interglacial period or marine isotope substage (MIS) 5.5, which occurred ∼120,000 years ago. Nevertheless, ...there are still uncertainties with respect to its duration, warmth and magnitude of sea-level rise. Here we present new data from tectonically stable peninsular Florida and the Florida Keys that provide estimates of the timing and magnitude of sea-level rise during the Last Interglacial period. The Last Interglacial high sea stand in south Florida is recorded by the Key Largo Limestone, a fossil reef complex, and the Miami Limestone, an oolitic marine sediment. Thirty-five new, high-precision, uranium-series ages of fossil corals from the Key Largo Limestone indicate that sea level was significantly above present for at least 9000 years during the Last Interglacial period, and possibly longer. Ooids from the Miami Limestone show open-system histories with respect to U-series dating, but show a clear linear trend toward an age of ∼120 ka, correlating this unit with the Last Interglacial corals of the Key Largo Limestone. Older fossil reefs at three localities in the Florida Keys have ages of ∼200 ka and probably correlate to MIS 7. These reefs imply sea level near or slightly above present during the penultimate interglacial period. Elevation measurements of both the Key Largo Limestone and the Miami Limestone indicate that local (relative) sea level was at least 6.6 m, and possibly as much as 8.3 m higher than present during the Last Interglacial period.
► The Last Interglacial period is a possible future warm-climate analog. ► Tectonically stable Florida provides a good record of this period. ► In Florida, this high sea level lasted at least 9000 years and was 7 to 8 m above present. ► It is likely both Greenland and Antarctica contributed to this high sea stand. ► Sea-level rise of this magnitude would inundate significant areas around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic altered the local economic geographies of many U.S. cities, and it remains unclear how long these changes will persist. This study analyzed the sociospatial dynamics of business ...closures in Miami-Dade County, Florida, from August 2020 to August 2021 with an explicit focus on reconciling the pandemic's effects in the context of location theory. We found that traditional urban centers and transit-concentrated areas experienced disproportionately higher rates of business closures during the study period, suggesting a potential wave of commercial suburbanization in Miami. Middle-class and working-class Hispanic neighborhoods suffered the most business closures. The results of correlation analysis and spatial regression models suggested a positive association between the incidence of COVID-19 cases and business closures at both zip code and individual business levels. These results also beckon a revaluation of the role of certain urban externalities in traditional location theory. The importance of automobile accessibility and agglomeration effects are poised to persist beyond the pandemic, but the benefits of proximity to the public transport system might decline. The trends observed in Miami suggest that the pandemic could generate more automobile-reliant employment subcenters in U.S. cities and amplify problems of intraurban inequality and urban sprawl.
In the early twentieth century, Miami cultivated an image of itself as a destination for leisure and sunshine free from labor strife. Thomas A. Castillo unpacks this idea of class harmony and the ...language that articulated its presence by delving into the conflicts, repression, and progressive grassroots politics of the time. Castillo pays particular attention to how class and race relations reflected and reinforced the nature of power in Miami. Class harmony argued against the existence of labor conflict, but in reality obscured how workers struggled within the city's service-oriented seasonal economy. Castillo shows how and why such an ideal thrived in Miami’s atmosphere of growth and boosterism and amidst the political economy of tourism. His analysis also presents class harmony as a theoretical framework that broadens our definitions of class conflict and class consciousness.
Automobiles significantly changed access to leisure for Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, spawning interest in and growth of resort towns like Miami, Florida. The occupation of ...chauffeur was a frequent site of both class conflict and anti-Black terror. Yet the car operated as a liminal site of subjectivity in which Black chauffeurs determined some parameters of their experience of both work and pleasure. Black chauffeurs in Miami in the 1910s were at the vanguard of efforts by local Black communities to create and claim pleasurable space and its attendant leisure via driving in a profoundly racist and exceptionally dangerous touristic climate. At stake was access to a commodity and a profession with an exhilarating potential to upend social, political and economic norms, remolding communities in ways that promised leisure for local Black motorists, chauffeurs, and vacationers. Black automotivity in Miami disrupted aspects of the city’s system of racial capitalism and established the car as a potent site of refusal, work, and pleasure.
A robust airborne light detection and ranging digital terrain model (LiDAR DTM) and select outcrops are used to examine the extent and characteristics of the surficial karst overprint of the late ...Pleistocene Miami oolite in South Florida. Subaerial exposure of the Miami oolite barrier bar and shoals to a meteoric diagenetic environment, lasting ca. 120 kyr from the end of the last interglacial highstand MIS 5e until today, has resulted in diagenetic alteration including surface and shallow subsurface dissolution producing extensive dolines and a few small stratiform caves.
Analysis of the LiDAR DTM suggests that >50% of the dolines in the Miami oolite have been obscured/lost to urbanization, though a large number of depressions remain apparent and can be examined for trends and spatial patterns. The verified dolines are analyzed for their size and depth, their lateral distribution and relation to depositional topography, and the separation distance between them. Statistical pattern analysis shows that the average separation distance and average density of dolines on the strike-oriented barrier bar versus dip-oriented shoals is statistically inseparable. Doline distribution on the barrier bar is clustered because of the control exerted on dissolution by the depositional topography of the shoal system, whereas patterning of dolines in the more platform-ward lower-relief shoals is statistically indistinguishable from random. The areal extent and depth of dissolution of the dolines are well described by simple mathematical functions, and the depth of the dolines increases as a function of their size. The separation and density results from the Miami oolite are compared to results from other carbonate terrains. Near-surface, stratiform caves in the Miami oolite occur in sites where the largest and deepest dolines are present, and sit at, or near, the top of the present water table.
The Miami-CFAR Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Pathway Initiative (Miami CDEIPI) is designed to promote a diverse scientific workforce that reflects the communities at the highest risk of HIV in South ...Florida.
The focus of the Miami CDEIPI is to help train the next generation of Underrepresented Minorities (URM) and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in HIV/AIDS-related research through a team science experience. The Miami CDEIPI objectives are to facilitate the interaction of URM/BIPOC students with the network of CFAR-affiliated investigators and to enable these students to access the cutting-edge technologies at the Miami-CFAR and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and other resources at the University of Miami.
Five URM/BIPOC students supported by the program in year 1 have been carrying out projects in collaboration with mentors at their parent institution and Miami-CFAR investigators. The students used the state-of-the-art laboratories and core facilities. They began their research with a proposal designed to integrate the cutting-edge technologies now available to them. Their training included participation in Miami-CFAR-sponsored activities such as seminars, an annual conference, and a national HIV workshop. Candidates in the Miami CDEIPI are in the process of developing their research proposals, integrating cutting-edge technologies into their doctoral dissertation research. Their projects are now in the completion phase.
The Miami CDEIPI focuses its resources on one of the conspicuous gaps in the career paths of URM/BIPOC researchers-the dearth of leading URM/BIPOC scientists in the field. The Miami CDEIPI provides a professional network that supports the participation of URM/BIPOC trainees in innovative research and career skill training.
Climate gentrification has become a powerful concept to explore how climate change governance and peoples' awareness of sea-level rise will produce new housing geographies and urban inequalities. ...Departing from climate justice and gentrification critiques, we contribute to the conceptual advancement of climate gentrification from a geographical perspective through an examination of whether its occurrence in Miami is a real climate change-minded investment practice. We find homebuyers' awareness of sea-level rise is not the major factor compelling homebuyers to higher ground. Presently, climate gentrification in Miami is more reflective of a rational economic investment motivation in response to expensive flood insurance rather than sea-level rise itself. Homebuyers are more steered by flood insurance required by FEMA and the historical record of flooding, rather than elevation and scientific projections of storm surges. Moreover, unlike other global cities, wealthy and well-educated homebuyers show fewer concerns about rising sea levels and climate change in Miami. Our findings reveal that climate gentrification is being utilized by some developers and is both interpreted and misinterpreted by local policymakers to facilitate neoliberal urban redevelopment and place marketing. At the same time, the real estate industry is failing buyers in terms of providing accurate climate and sea-level rise information. To help remedy this knowledge gap, we call for two policy instruments to increase investors' awareness of sea-level rise: 1) include risk assessment of sea-level rise in homebuyer contracts, and 2) improve FEMA insurance maps to incorporate sea-level rise scenarios.
•Climate gentrification in Miami is not a real climate change-minded investment practice.•Homebuyers' preference for higher ground only partially explains climate gentrification in Miami-Dade County.•Presently, climate gentrification in Miami is more reflective of a rational economic investment motivation.•The dynamics of CG show sensitivity to house types and local context.
Little is known about the effect of tidal changes on minor flooding in most lagoonal estuaries, often due to a paucity of historical records that predate landscape changes. In this contribution, we ...recover and apply archival tidal range data to show that the mean tidal range in Miami, Florida, has almost doubled since 1900, from 0.32 to 0.61 m today. A likely cause is the dredging of a ∼15 m deep, 150 m wide harbor entrance channel beginning in the early 20th century, which changed northern Biscayne Bay from a choked inlet system to one with a tidal range close to coastal conditions. To investigate the implications for high‐tide flooding, we develop and validate a tidal‐inference based methodology that leverages estimates of pre‐1900 tidal range to obtain historical tidal predictions and constituents. Next, water level predictions that represent historical and modern water level variations are projected forward in time using different sea level rise scenarios. Results show that the historical increase in tidal range hastened the occurrence of present‐day flooding, and that the total integrated number of days with high‐tide floods in the 2020–2100 period will be approximately O(103) more under present day tides compared to pre‐development conditions. These results suggest that tidal change may be a previously under‐appreciated factor in the increasing prevalence of high‐tide flooding in lagoonal estuaries, and our methods open the door to improving our understanding of other heavily‐altered systems.
Plain Language Summary
Tabulations of historical tidal range indicate that tidal range in Miami (Florida) has approximately doubled since the 19th century, from 0.32 to 0.61 m. The likely cause appears to be the construction and dredging of the shipping channel to the Port of Miami, though historical land‐reclamation may also play a role. In this paper, we show that the increase in tidal range significantly exacerbates the number of minor flood events that are occurring throughout the Biscayne Bay region. As sea‐level rise continues, tidal changes will cause high‐tide flood impacts to be felt about a decade earlier than would have occurred under historical tidal conditions.
Key Points
Tidal range in the Miami downtown area almost doubled over the past century due to human‐induced bathymetric change and wetland reclamation
Pre‐1900 tidal predictions are estimated from historical tidal range using a tidal‐constituent inference based method
Increased tidal range increases the probability of high‐tide flooding and shortens the time to when sea‐level rise will cause chronic flooding
