Facts about Wetlands

The NWI also produces periodic reports on the status and trends of wetlands in the conterminous U.S.

Historically, humans have made large-scale and small-scale efforts to drain wetlands for development or flood them for use as recreational lakes.

Wetlands likewise provide water supply for domestic, agricultural, and industrial uses, and the structure of wetlands may allow for economical water transport.

By absorbing the force of strong winds and tides, wetlands protect terrestrial areas adjoining them from storms, floods, and tidal damage.

Fens, freshwater peat-forming wetlands, are covered mostly by grasses, sedges, reeds, and wildflowers, while bogs, characterized by spongy peat deposits, have evergreen trees and shrubs and a floor covered by sphagnum moss (EPA 2004).

Wetlands provide innumerable economic, ecological, cultural, recreational, and aesthetic values.

Humans can maximize the area of healthy, functioning intertidal wetlands by minimizing their impacts and by developing management strategies that protect, and where possible rehabilitate those ecosystems at risk.

Wetlands are a vital part of the ecosystem that provide clean drinking water for millions.

Within the Pantanal are diverse types of riverine, lacustrine, and palustrine wetlands, as well as large rivers, lakes, and other standing water and terrestrial ecosystems.

Among types of wetlands are swamps, marshes, and bogs (defined below).

Plants such as cattails, bulrushes, sedges, arrowhead, water lilies, blue flag, and floaters like common duckweed may be found in various wetlands.

The intertidal wetlands must be able to survive extreme conditions of mainly salt water at high tide, fresh water at low tide, and times of flood and brackish water at other times.

Denitrification can be detected in many soils, but denitrification is fastest in wetlands soils (Ullah and Faulkner 2006).

Being transitional between aquatic and terrestrial environments, and involving complex interactions among such components as water, soils, topography and biotic communities, wetlands help to preserve biodiversity.

The NWI website includes a Wetlands Mapper in which users can view, download, or print maps of digital wetlands information.

Wetlands are found under a wide range of hydrological conditions, but at least some of the time water saturates the soil.

Some of these are reproduced in the definitions of wetlands below.

Riverine refers to river-related environments, and lacustrine to lake-related environments, while palustrine include inland wetlands that lack flowing water, such as inland marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens.

The two basic types of wetlands are coastal wetlands, found along the ocean, and inland wetlands.

Wetlands also fulfill important functions, such as flood control, groundwater recharge and discharge, water purification through retention of sediments and pollutants, storm protection, water table maintenance, and stabilization of climate.

On the other hand, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service defines wetlands as follows (Cowardin et al.

The problems are compounded by the fact that many wetlands evolve over time, starting as open water, but infilling with sediment and vegetation eventually to become dry land."

Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) produces and provides information on the characteristics, extent, and status of U.S. wetlands and deepwater habitats and other wildlife habitats.

Wetlands remove nutrients from surface and ground water by filtering and by converting nutrients to unavailable forms.

Wetlands are often filled in to be used by humans for everything from agriculture to parking lots, in part because the economic value of wetlands has only been recognized recently.

Despite these many values, the historical view of wetlands was that they were "wastelands."

Some wetlands were lost via mining, waste disposal, pollution, or redirecting the water for more valued purposes.

Intertidal wetlands are found in coastal areas where air temperature, wave action, salinity levels, and sediment movements are moderated by the locational features of the estuarine environment and ecosystem.

Wetlands are among the world's most productive environments and provide innumerable economic, ecological, cultural, recreational and aesthetic values.

Many wetlands also provide habitats for resident and migratory fish and wildlife.

Intertidal wetlands provide an excellent example of invasion, modification, and succession.

Fens, freshwater peat-forming wetlands, are covered mostly by grasses, sedges, reeds, and wildflowers, while bogs, characterized by spongy peat deposits, have evergreen trees and shrubs and a floor covered by sphagnum moss (EPA 2004).