Florida’s Rising Seas: Mapping Florida’s Future

Florida’s Rising Seas: Mapping Our Future is a GIS-based analysis of the intersection between population growth, development patterns and sea level rise in Florida. A joint project of the University of Florida Center for Landscape Conservation Planning and 1000 Friends of Florida, it builds on the Florida 2070/Water 2070 reports released in 2016 but incorporates the impacts of sea level rise on lands available for development, conservation, agriculture and other purposes, and the associated need for population relocation.

Florida’s Rising Seas includes two separate studies, Sea Level 2040 and Sea Level 2070.  Each includes two scenarios which cover potential futures, one dominated by continuing sprawl and the second reflecting efforts to manage growth and protect important conservation lands:

The Sprawl Scenarios assume recent densities and patterns of development will continue over the next two decades, while factoring in the impacts of sea level rise on Florida’s lands and the resulting need for population relocation.

The Conservation Scenarios account for the same population growth and sea level rise as the Sprawl Scenarios but assume new development will be more compact and will avoid much of the state’s highest priority lands for conservation.