Portal:Wetlands
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Wetlands Portal
Introduction
A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique hydric soil. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink and shoreline stability. Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, and the Pantanal in South America. The water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens; and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, and varzea.
The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to inform people about wetland issues.
Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they also play a role in water-sensitive urban design.
Selected article
Other terms that are used to describe drainage basins are catchment, catchment area, drainage area, river basin and water basin. In North America, the term watershed is commonly used to mean a drainage basin, though in other English-speaking countries, it is used only in its original sense, to mean a drainage divide, the former meaning an area, the latter the high elevation perimeter of that area. Drainage basins drain into other drainage basins in a hierarchical pattern, with smaller sub-drainage basins combining into larger drainage basins.
In closed ("endorheic") drainage basins the water converges to a single point inside the basin, known as a sink, which may be a permanent lake, dry lake, or a point where surface water is lost underground. The drainage basin includes both the streams and rivers that convey the water as well as the land surfaces from which water drains into those channels, and is separated from adjacent basins by a drainage divide. (Full article...)
General images
- Image 2Sugar Fen, Norfolk (from Fen)
- Image 4Sphagnum moss and sedges can produce floating bog mats along the shores of small lakes. This bog in Duck Lake, Oregon, US, supports populations of English sundew (Drosera anglica). (from Bog)
- Image 6A raised bog in Ķemeri National Park, Jūrmala, Latvia, formed approximately 10,000 years ago in the postglacial period and now a tourist attraction. (from Bog)
- Image 7Fog rising over the Mukri bog near Mukri, Estonia. The bog has an area of 2,147 hectares (5,310 acres) and has been protected since 1992. (from Wetland)
- Image 8Bog-wood and boulders at the Stumpy Knowe near South Auchenmade, Ayrshire, Scotland (from Bog)
- Image 10Humid wetland in Pennsylvania before a rain. (from Wetland)
- Image 12Spaulding Fen, Wisconsin. (from Fen)
- Image 13Sunrise at Viru Bog, Estonia (from Wetland)
- Image 18The wetlands of Cape May, New Jersey, U.S. comprise an extensive hydrological network that makes them an ornithologically important location to study the many birds which use the preserve as a place to nest. (from Wetland)
- Image 20White water lilies are a typical marsh plant in European areas of deeper water. (from Marsh)
- Image 21Precipitation accumulates in many bogs, forming bog pools, such as Koitjärve bog in Estonia. (from Bog)
- Image 22Marshlands are often noted within wetlands, as seen here at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in New York City. (from Wetland)
- Image 25Wetland at the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Massachusetts, United States, in February (from Wetland)
- Image 27Small extreme rich fen in southwestern Minnesota. The white flowers, Parnassia glauca, are a fen indicator species in Minnesota. (from Fen)
- Image 28Marsh Arabs poling a mashoof (from Swamp)
- Image 30Kakerdaja Fen, Estonia (from Fen)
- Image 31Difference between swamp and marsh (from Swamp)
- Image 33Marshlands are often noted within wetlands, as seen here in the New Jersey Meadowlands at Lyndhurst, New Jersey, U.S. (from Marsh)
- Image 37Wetlands contrast the hot, arid landscape around Middle Spring, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Utah (from Wetland)
- Image 40Aerial view of prairie potholes (from Marsh)
- Image 41Marsh in shallow water on a lakeshore (from Marsh)
- Image 42An expanse of wet Sphagnum bog in Frontenac National Park, Quebec, Canada. Spruce trees can be seen on a forested ridge in the background. (from Bog)
- Image 44Avaste Fen, Estonia. Sedges dominate the landscape, woody shrubs and trees are sparse. (from Fen)
- Image 45Carnivorous plants, such as this Sarracenia purpurea pitcher plant of the eastern seaboard of North America, are often found in bogs. Capturing insects provides nitrogen and phosphorus, which are usually scarce in such conditions. (from Bog)
Law
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Did you know...
... that swampbuster discourages using wetlands as croplands?
(Pictured left: Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee.) |
Other "Did you know" facts... | Read more... |
Categories
Related portals
Organizations
- America's Wetland Foundation
- Birds Korea
- Delta Waterfowl Foundation
- Ducks Unlimited
- Foundation for Ecological Security
- Irish Peatland Conservation Council
- National Wetlands Coalition
- Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
- Union Sportsmen's Alliance
- Wetlands International
- Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
Topics
- Acrotelm
- Aquatic ecosystem
- Aquatic plants
- Atchafalaya Basin
- Backswamp
- Bayou
- Beach meadow
- Blackwater river
- Blanket bog
- Bog
- Bog bodies
- Bog butter
- Bog garden
- Bog iron
- Bog snorkelling
- Bog-wood
- Brackish marsh
- Callows
- Carr (landform)
- Cataract bog
- Cienega
- Coniferous swamp
- Converted wetland
- Dambo
- Drainage basin
- Drought refuge
- Estuary
- Everglades
- Fen
- Fen-meadow
- Flark
- Flooded grasslands and savannas
- Flood-meadow
- Floodplain
- Freshwater swamp forest
- Grass valley
- Guelta
- Halosere
- High Fens
- High marsh
- Hamuns
- Hydric soil
- Hydrology
- Hydrosere
- Igapó
- Ings
- Integrated constructed wetland
- Interdunal wetland
- Intertidal wetland
- Kettle (landform)
- Lagoon
- Lake ecosystem
- Limnology
- List of bogs
- List of fen plants
- Low marsh
- Meadowview Biological Research Station
- Marsh
- Marsh gas
- Mere
- Mire
- Misse
- Moorland
- Muck
- Mudflat
- Muskeg
- Myristica swamp
- Oasis
- Ombrotrophic
- Paludification
- Palustrine wetland
- Pantanal
- Peat
- Peat swamp forest
- Pond
- Pothole
- Prairie Pothole Region
- Ramsar site
- Reed bed
- Restoration of the Everglades
- Riparian zone
- River delta
- River ecosystem
- Salt marsh
- Salt marsh dieback
- Salt marsh die-off
- Salt pannes and pools
- Shrub swamp
- Slough (hydrology)
- Sphagnum
- String bog
- Sudd
- Swale
- Swamp
- Tropical peat
- Várzea forest
- Vernal pool
- Water stagnation
- Wetland classification
- Wetland conservation
- Wetland indicator status
- Wetland methane emissions
- Wetlands International
- Wetlands
- Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
- Will-o'-the-wisp
- Yaéré
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