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Wetlands provide an abundance of essential ecosystem services, including: Water storage, storm protection, and flood mitigation Water purification through retention of nutrients, sediments, and pollutants Groundwater recharge Essential habitat for many plants and animals, including over 90 percent of the roughly Great Lakes fish species that occur in the Great Lakes Shoreline stabilization and erosion control.
The Problem Today, wetlands degradation and destruction is occurring more rapidly than in any other ecosystem. Solutions: The good news is that despite the significant amount of wetland destruction since European settlement in Michigan, 6.
Dumping: Dumping fill material buries hydric soils and effectively lowers the water table so hydrophytic water loving plants cannot compete with upland plants.
Dredging: The removal of material from a wetland or river bed. Dredging of streams lowers the surrounding water table and dries up adjacent wetlands. Draining: Water is drained from wetlands by cutting ditches into the ground which collect and transport water out of the wetland.
This lowers the water table and dries out the wetland. Diverting flow: Water is diverted around wetlands, lowering the water table. Devegetation: Vegetation plays an important role in wetland ecology by removing water through evapotranspiration, altering water and soil chemistry, providing habitat for wildlife, and reducing erosion. Removal of vegetation can drastically and sometimes irreversibly alter wetland function.
Damming flow: Many ponds and reservoirs are constructed on wetlands. As each delta lobe was abandoned by the river, its main source of sediment, the deltas experienced erosion and degradation due to compaction of loose sediment, rise in relative sea level, and catastrophic storms. Marine coastal processes eroded and reworked the seaward margins of the deltas forming sandy headlands and barrier beaches.
As erosion and degradation continued, segmented low-relief barrier islands formed and eventually were separated from the mainland by shallow bays and lagoons.
The environmental and economic consequences of coastal erosion in Louisiana are significant. Barrier islands fronting the Mississippi River delta plain act as a buffer to reduce the effects of ocean waves and currents on associated estuaries and wetlands.
Louisiana's barrier islands are eroding, however, at a rate of up to 20 meters per year; so fast that, according to recent USGS estimates, several will disappear by the end of the century. As the barrier islands disintegrate, the vast system of sheltered wetlands along Louisiana's delta plains are exposed to the full force and effects of open marine processes such as wave action, salinity intrusion, storm surge, tidal currents, and sediment transport that combine to accelerate wetlands deterioration.
Temporal and spatial relationships of wetland-related processes and responses. Many questions remain about the environment in which barrier islands evolve and wetland areas evolve and mature. Pesticide use in Canada has been on the rise since the Second World War, with a per cent increase in treated land from to Pesticides are transported into water bodies by direct over spray by:.
Studies of pesticide residues in wetlands across North America have reported moderate to high concentration levels. An international study of wetland economics released in January by the World Wildlife Fund WWF confirms these natural areas produce a number of economically-important goods and services including food, fresh water, building materials, water treatment, and flood control.
Recreational opportunities, storm buffering and aesthetic amenities are other economic attributes of wetlands. Wetlands can help reduce the effects of flooding. You are here: Conservation » Wetland Loss Wetland Loss It is difficult to know exactly how many wetlands have been significantly altered or have disappeared from the Alberta landscape. What can we do about it?
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