Preservation and restoration of the remaining Everglades ecosystem is focused on two aspects: improving upstream water quality and improving "hydropatterns" - the timing, depth and flow of surface water. Restoration of hydropatterns requires knowledge of the original pre-canal drainage conditions as well as an understanding of the soil, topo-graphic, and vegetation changes that have taken place since canal drainage began in the 1880's.

Aldo Leopold wrote that "the first step in intelligent tinkering is to save the pieces." For the Everglades, saving the ecosystem pieces would have meant making synoptic stage and flow measurements over multiple years and over an area larger than the State of Connecticut, prior to launching even the first canal dredge. Unfortunately, but understandably, this was not done. For the first 40 to 60 years of drainage very few standard hydrologic measurements exist. Evaluation of a hydrologic "hindcasting" model such as the NSM must, therefore, rely on more than the traditional sources of information. There are numerous sources of hydrological information which merit full exploitation, but they are often in unusual locations, may be unpublished, and sometimes require further interpretation and analysis. Examples of historical sources include early maps, government surveys, botanical explorations, road and canal profiles, cross-Everglades expeditions, military accounts, and early scientific investigations.

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