The ecosystem
Are areas flooded or saturated by water and support vegetation adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. May be covered in shallow water either some or all of the year.
What is a Wetland?
In general, these enable nutrient cycling and sediment capture, provide habitats for many organisms, support unique physical, biological and chemical processes, and create “hotspots” of nutrient and energy cycling due to position or presence on the landscape.
What are wetlands?
Biological productivity in wetlands result from: plant biomass and seeds, and dead plant material. Dead plant material, found in abundance in wetlands also provides the fuel for specialized wetland microbes to perform this process in which bacteria convert inorganic nitrogen (from fertilizer runoff) into harmless dinitrogen gas, N2.
What is denitrification?
Wetlands are primarily destroyed by direct wetland draining or filling for these two human activities.
What is agriculture and urban development?
These activities provided by wetlands include hiking, photography, boating, fishing, hunting, and birdwatching. Hiking photography and boating generate about $40 billion a year.
What are recreational activities?
What are cultural Services?
Government organization that classifies wetlands as land which primarily supports hydrophytic (water-loving) plants at least part of the year, substrate is primarily hydric soil (formed under prolonged flooding), saturated or covered by shallow water during at least part of the growing season annually.
What is the US Fish and Wildlife service?
When methane compounds are in
short supply in the soil of wetlands, bacteria cannot
consume dead and decaying
plants efficiently, resulting in the
accumulation of this highly organic material.
What are peat soils? (slide 19)
This compound comes from dead plant material that is not used by bacteria, and it gets stored in the soil. When wetlands are drained or degraded, this compound sequestered by wetlands is released back into the atmosphere and diminishes the ability to sequester it in the future.
What is carbon?
Government programs protecting wetlands include Clean Water Act, Farm Bill conservation programs, Water Quality Trading, and Wetland Mitigation Banking. This program was enacted “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters”.
What is the Clean water Act?
This recreational activity allows the general population to utilize this resource found or reared in wetlands. It generates $116 billion annually to the economy.
What is fishing?
Are hydrophytes or water-loving species adapted to survive and reproduce in flooded conditions: anaerobic soil and adapted roots.
What are wetland plants?
Hydrologic regulation, Biological productivity, Nutrient cycling, Water quality improvement, Habitat provision. These are classified as
What are wetland functions/services?
Wetlands are known as this body organ "of the landscape” because the unique physical and biologic process traps and removes contaminants from the environment.
What is kidneys?
This government program encourages reducing pollution affecting wetlands and incentivizes establishing efficient filtration systems, allows organizations to be paid to reduce the amount of pollution they discharge, and can also be used to build wetlands by offsetting wastewater treatment costs.
What is Water Quality trading program?
In wetlands hunting of waterfowl, white tailed deer, and feral hogs generates $145 billion annually. On the other hand, this recreational activity that includes the hobby of viewing and photographing birds generates $41 billion annually.
What is birdwatching?
Type of roots found in mangroves, tupelo, cypresses. Structures which can grow out of the ground, down from the plant’s stem and even above water surfaces because exposed roots can take in oxygen.
What is aerial roots?
Many shallow basins and floodplains trap water and then slowly release it. On average, one acre of wetlands can store one million gallons of water and slowly release it. Large amounts of these inside the wetlands slow the speed of water flow.
What is vegetation?
Water quality improvements occur in wetlands due to physical trapping, biological uptake, and chemical processes. Physical trapping removes phosphorus (a key fertilizer contributing to harmful algae blooms when it runs off farmland and into ponds and lakes). Biological uptake occurs when biological processes occurring naturally in the ecosystem remove contaminants. Lastly, chemical processes occur due to the slow flow and long residence time of water in wetlands allowing sunlight and bacteria to degrade these compounds present in the water.
What are pesticides, herbicides and residues of pharmaceuticals?
What are pollutants?
What are contaminants?
Wetland mitigation is a government program that can be purchased if wetland losses cannot be avoided or minimized under state or federal (Clean Water Act) regulations. These are wetland creation or restoration projects completed in anticipation of wetland impacts nearby.
What are mitigation banks?
This can be provided through wetlands because one acre of wetlands can filter 7.3 million gallons of water a year and one out of three Americans receive this from aquifers replenished by wetlands.
What is drinking water?
In these type of wetland, wetland vegetation slows water flow and reduces wave heights, this can reduce damage from abnormally high sea tides, known as storm surges, caused by hurricanes and other extreme weather events.
What are coastal wetlands?
Along the banks of rivers, these types of wetlands are particularly vulnerable to destruction, but serves a vital role in river floodplain protection.
What is riparian wetlands?
Forty-three percent of threatened or endangered species rely on wetlands for survival. For migratory birds gathering resources along the flyway during bi-annual migration, wetlands are known as __________ ________ for birds, as it provides rest areas, food, and shelter.
What are stopover sites?
The Ducks Unlimited® Storing Carbon and Preserving Working Ranch Lands program uses money from selling this type of credits to finance payments for farmers to preserve wetlands and grasslands.
What is selling carbon credits?
Wetlands are so effective at filtering water they are used to treat this household and community type of water. In the United States, wetlands filter discharge from this type of water treatment plants.
What is wastewater?
What is sewer water?