Are Wetlands Freshwater Or Saltwater

Classification and Types of Wetlands

Nomenclature of Wetlands

Used by U.South. Fish and Wildlife Service

I commonly used nomenclature system for wetlands was developed by Cowardin and is described in Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United states. The Cowardin system is used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the National Wetlands Inventory. In this system, wetlands are classified past landscape position, vegetation cover and hydrologic regime. The Cowardin system includes five major wetland types: marine, tidal, lacustrine, palustrine and riverine.

Used by U.South. Army Corps of Engineers

Another common wetland classification system, used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was adult by Brinson and is described in A Hydrogeomorphic Classification for Wetlands. As the title implies, wetlands are classified by their geomorphic setting, ascendant water source (eastward.g. precipitation, groundwater or surface water) and hydrodynamics. The hydrogeomorphic (HGM) includes five major wetland types: riverine, slope depressional, flat and fringe.

Types of Wetlands

Marshes
Swamps
Bogs
Fens

Marshes

Non-Tidal Marshes
Tidal Marshes

Description of Marshes

Marshes are defined as wetlands frequently or continually inundated with water, characterized by emergent soft-stemmed vegetation adapted to saturated soil weather condition. In that location are many different kinds of marshes, ranging from the prairie potholes to the Everglades, coastal to inland, freshwater to saltwater. All types receive most of their h2o from surface h2o, and many marshes are also fed by groundwater. Nutrients are plentiful and the pH is commonly neutral leading to an abundance of plant and animal life. We take divided marshes into two principal categories: not-tidal and tidal.

cattail — Mutual Cattail (Typha latifolia) is a freshwater and estuarine marsh species.

Functions & Values of Marshes

Marshes recharge groundwater supplies and moderate streamflow by providing water to streams. This is an especially important office during periods of drought. The presence of marshes in a watershed helps to reduce impairment acquired by floods by slowing and storing alluvion water. Equally water moves slowly through a marsh, sediment and other pollutants settle to the substrate or flooring of the marsh. Marsh vegetation and microorganisms also use backlog nutrients for growth that can otherwise pollute surface water such every bit nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer.

Not-Tidal Marshes

muskrat — Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) next to its house in a cattail-dominated marsh.

Clarification

Non-tidal marshes are the virtually prevalent and widely distributed wetlands in North America. They are by and large freshwater marshes, although some are brackish or alkali metal. They frequently occur along streams in poorly drained depressions and in the shallow water along the boundaries of lakes, ponds and rivers. Water levels in these wetlands generally vary from a few inches to two or three anxiety, and some marshes, like prairie potholes, may periodically dry out out completely.

Highly organic, mineral rich soils of sand, silt, and clay underlie these wetlands, while lily pads, cattails (see photo), reeds and bulrushes provide first-class habitat for waterfowl and other small mammals, such equally Reddish-winged Blackbirds, Great Blue Herons, otters and muskrats. Examples of non-tidal marshes are: Prairie potholes, playa lakes, vernal pools and moisture meadows.

Functions & Values

Due to their high levels of nutrients, freshwater marshes are one of the virtually productive ecosystems on globe. They tin can sustain a vast array of institute communities that in turn back up a wide diverseness of wild animals within this vital wetland ecosystem. As a effect, marshes sustain a diversity of life that is asymmetric with their size. In addition to their considerable habitat value, not-tidal marshes serve to mitigate flood damage and filter excess nutrients from surface runoff.

mink — Mink (Mustela vison), a predator of the muskrat.

pickerelweed — Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata).

Status

Unfortunately, like many other wetland ecosystems, freshwater marshes have suffered major acreage losses to human development. Some take been degraded by excessive deposits of nutrients and sediment from construction and farming. Severe flooding and nutrient degradation to downstream waters have often followed marsh destruction and degradation. Such environmental problems evidence the vital roles these wetlands play. This realization has spurred enhanced protection and restoration of marsh ecosystems, such every bit the prairie potholes and the Everglades.

Tidal Marshes

rail — The Clapper Track of the saltmarshes, which is more than commonly heard than seen.

Clarification

Tidal marshes can be found along protected coastlines in heart and high latitudes worldwide. They are most prevalent in the Us on the eastern declension from Maine to Florida and standing on to Louisiana and Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. Some are freshwater marshes, others are brackish (somewhat salty), and still others are saline (salty), simply they are all influenced past the motion of sea tides. Tidal marshes are unremarkably categorized into two distinct zones, the lower or intertidal marsh and the upper or high marsh.

In saline tidal marshes, the lower marsh is usually covered and exposed daily by the tide. It is predominantly covered past the tall form of Smoothen Cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora). The saline marsh is covered by h2o but sporadically and is characterized past Short Smooth Cordgrass, Spike Grass and Saltmeadow Rush (Juncus gerardii). Saline marshes back up a highly specialized set of life adjusted for saline conditions.

Functions & Values

Tidal marshes serve many important functions. They buffer stormy seas, deadening shoreline erosion and are able to absorb excess nutrients before they reach oceans and estuaries. Tidal marshes as well provide vital food and habitat for clams, crabs and juvenile fish, as well as offering shelter and nesting sites for several species of migratory waterfowl.

egret — The Slap-up Egret (Casmerodius albus) winters in the tidal marshes along the Gulf Coast.

Status

Pressure to fill up in these wetlands for coastal development has led to significant and continuing losses of tidal marshes, especially along the Atlantic declension. Pollution, especially nearly urban areas, as well remains a serious threat to these ecosystems. Fortunately, most states have enacted special laws to protect tidal marshes, just diligence is needed to assure that these protective measures are actively enforced.

Swamps

Forested Swamps
Shrub Swamps

skunk — Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) sprouts very early on in the spring, melting the surrounding snow. The insects that pollinate information technology are attracted by its odor, which resembles decomposable mankind.

Description of Swamps

A swamp is any wetland dominated by woody plants. There are many different kinds of swamps, ranging from the forested Red Maple, (Acer rubrum), swamps of the Northeast to the all-encompassing bottomland hardwood forests found along the sluggish rivers of the Southeast. Swamps are characterized past saturated soils during the growing flavor and continuing h2o during certain times of the year. The highly organic soils of swamps course a thick, black, nutrient-rich environment for the growth of water-tolerant trees such as Cypress (Taxodium spp.), Atlantic White Cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), and Tupelo (Nyssa aquatica). Some swamps are dominated by shrubs, such as Buttonbush or Shine Alder. Plants, birds, fish, and invertebrates such equally freshwater shrimp, crayfish, and clams require the habitats provided by swamps. Many rare species, such as the endangered American Crocodile, depend on these ecosystems besides. Swamps may exist divided into ii major classes, depending on the type of vegetation present: shrub swamps and forested swamps.

warbler — Prothonotary Warblers (Protonotaria citrea) are found in southern swamplands.

Functions & Values of Swamps

Swamps serve vital roles in flood protection and nutrient removal. Floodplain forests are particularly high in productivity and species variety because of the rich deposits of alluvial soil from floods. Many upland creatures depend on the abundance of nutrient found in the lowland swamps, and valuable timber can be sustainably harvested to provide building materials for people.

Condition

Due to the nutrient-rich soils present in swamps, many of these fertile woodlands have been drained and cleared for agriculture and other development. Historically, swamps take been portrayed as frightening no-human being'due south-lands. This perception led to the vast devastation of immense tracts of swampland over the past 200 years, such as the destruction of more than half of the legendary Great Dismal Swamp of southeastern Virginia.

Forested Swamps

Forested swamps are institute throughout the U.s.a.. They are ofttimes inundated with floodwater from nearby rivers and streams. Sometimes, they are covered by many feet of very slowly moving or continuing water. In very dry years they may represent the simply shallow water for miles and their presence is critical to the survival of wetland-dependent species like Forest Ducks (Aix sponsa), River Otters (Lutra canadensis) and Cottonmouth Snakes (Agkistrodon piscivorus). Some of the common species of trees found in these wetlands are Blood-red Maple and Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) in the Northern United states of america, Overcup Oak (Quercus lyrata) and Cypress in the Due south, and Willows (Salix spp.) and Western Hemlock (Tsuga sp.) in the Northwest. Bottomland hardwood swamp is a proper noun commonly given to forested swamps in the south fundamental United States.

Shrub Swamps

Shrub swamps are similar to forested swamps except that shrubby vegetation such equally Buttonbush, Willow, Dogwood (Cornus sp.) and Swamp Rose (Rosa palustris) predominates. In fact, forested and shrub swamps are often institute side by side to one another. The soil is often water logged for much of the year and covered at times by every bit much as a few feet of water because this blazon of swamp is plant along slow moving streams and in floodplains. Mangrove swamps are a blazon of shrub swamp dominated by mangroves that covers vast expanses of southern Florida.

Bogs

Northern Bogs
Pocosins

salamander — This Eastern Mud Salamander (Pseudotriton montanus) is resting on sphagnum moss. Sphagnum creates bogs by property h2o and creating acidic conditions. Sphagnum itself may be upward to lxx percent water.

Clarification of Bogs

Bogs are ane of North America's most distinctive kinds of wetlands. They are characterized by spongy peat deposits, acidic waters and a floor covered by a thick carpet of sphagnum moss. Bogs receive all or near of their water from precipitation rather than from runoff, groundwater or streams. As a consequence, bogs are depression in the nutrients needed for found growth, a condition that is enhanced by acrid forming peat mosses.

There are 2 chief means that a bog tin develop: bogs can form as sphagnum moss grows over a lake or swimming and slowly fills it (terrestrialization), or bogs can course as sphagnum moss blankets dry land and prevents water from leaving the surface (paludification). Over time, many anxiety of acidic peat deposits build upwards in bogs of either origin. The unique and demanding concrete and chemical characteristics of bogs result in the presence of plant and brute communities that demonstrate many special adaptations to low food levels, waterlogged conditions, and acidic waters, such equally carnivorous plants.

bog — Carlisle Bog in Alaska. Dissimilar the rest of the U.s.a., Alaska notwithstanding has almost of its wetlands.

Functions & Values of Bogs

Bogs serve an important ecological function in preventing downstream flooding by arresting precipitation. Bogs support some of the almost interesting plants in the United States (similar the carnivorous Sundew) and provide habitat to animals threatened by human encroachment.

Status of Bogs

Bogs in the United States are mostly found in the glaciated northeast and Great Lakes regions (northern bogs) but also in the southeast (pocosins). Their acreage declined historically as they were tuckered to be used as cropland and mined for their peat, which was used as a fuel and a soil conditioner. Recently, bogs take been recognized for their role in regulating the global climate by storing large amounts of carbon in peat deposits. Bogs are unique communities that tin can exist destroyed in a affair of days but require hundreds, if not thousands, of years to form naturally.

Northern Bogs

This bog in Nova Scotia, Canada is dominated by ericaceous dwarf-shrubs, a common family of plants in the peat bogs of the Northeast.

The Northern Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea) overcomes the nutrient deficiencies of bog life by capturing insects in pools of water in its leaves and digesting them with the help of some local leaner. The Northern Pitcher Constitute's flower looks much like the Sweetness Pitcher Found's (see below).

Clarification

Northern bogs are mostly associated with low temperatures and curt growing seasons where aplenty precipitation and high humidity crusade excessive wet to accumulate. Therefore, most bogs in the The states are found in the northern states. Northern bogs frequently course in one-time glacial lakes. They may have either considerable amounts of open h2o surrounded by floating vegetation or vegetation may have completely filled the lake (terrestrialization).

The sphagnum peats of northern bogs cause especially acidic waters. The upshot is a wetland ecosystem with a very specialized and unique flora and fauna that can grow in these conditions chosen acidophiles. Nevertheless, bogs back up a number of species of plants in addition to the characteristic Sphagnum Moss, including Cotton fiber Grass, Cranberry, Blueberry, Pine, Labrador Tea and Tamarack. Moose, deer, and lynx are a few of the animals that can be found in northern bogs. The Greater Sandhill Crane, the Sora Rail, and the Great Gray Owl depend on bogs for survival.

Pocosins

Description

The word pocosin comes from the Algonquin Native American word for "swamp on a hill." These evergreen shrub and tree dominated landscapes are found on the Atlantic Coastal Plain from Virginia to northern Florida; though, most are found in Due north Carolina. Usually, there is no standing water present in pocosins, but a shallow h2o tabular array leaves the soil saturated for much of the twelvemonth.They range in size from less than an acre to several chiliad acres located betwixt and isolated from sometime or existing stream systems in almost instances.

bear — Pocosins provide large tracks of undisturbed state needed by Black Bears (Ursus americanus).

Because pocosins are establish in wide, flat, upland areas far from large streams, they are ombrotrophic like northern bogs, meaning pelting provides most of their water. Also similar the bogs of the far northward, pocosins are found on waterlogged, food poor and acrid soils. The soil itself is a mixture of peat and sand containing big amounts of charcoal from periodic burnings. These natural fires occur because pocosins periodically get very dry out in the spring or summer. The fires are ecologically of import considering they increase the diverseness of shrub types in pocosins.

sweet bay — Sweetness Bay (Magnolia virginiana.)

The most mutual plants are evergreen copse (Loblolly Bay, Crimson Bay and Sweetness Bay), and evergreen shrubs (titi, fetterbush and zenobia). Pocosins provide important habitat for many animals, including some endangered species similar the cherry-red-cockaded woodpecker. They are especially important as the concluding refuge for Blackness Bears in coastal Virginia and Due north Carolina and the Cherry-red Wolf has recently been reintroduced in North Carolina pocosins.

Functions & Values

Habitat is the nearly valuable function of Pocosins. Some pocosins are very large and hard to develop, and and so they remain largely undisturbed. As a result, they are a oasis for species adapted to living in unaltered forests. As more than and more than state is developed in the Eastern United States, pocosins are becoming ever more valuable refuges for wild fauna.

pitcher — The Sweet Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia rubra) is ane of the carnivorous plants found in pocosins.

The slow motility of water through the dense organic matter in pocosins removes excess nutrients deposited by rainwater. The same organic matter also acidifies the water. This very pure water is slowly released to estuaries, where information technology helps to maintain the proper salinity, nutrients and acidity. This process is of import to aid maintain healthy fish populations of import to both commerce and recreation. Pocosins are too sources of valuable timber and fuel, but these uses can impairment or destroy pocosins if they are not carried out responsibly.

Condition

Historically, pocosins were mostly threatened past agriculture. Today, timber harvesting, peat mining, and phosphate mining join agriculture as the biggest threats to the remaining undisturbed pocosins.

Fens

Description of Fens

Fens, are peat-forming wetlands that receive nutrients from sources other than precipitation: ordinarily from upslope sources through drainage from surrounding mineral soils and from groundwater movement. Fens differ from bogs considering they are less acidic and take college nutrient levels. Therefore, they are able to back up a much more various establish and fauna customs. These systems are often covered by grasses, sedges, rushes and wildflowers. Some fens are characterized by parallel ridges of vegetation separated by less productive hollows. The ridges of these patterned fens form perpendicular to the downslope direction of water motion. Over time, peat may build upwardly and separate the fen from its groundwater supply. When this happens, the fen receives fewer nutrients and may become a bog.

slipper — Showy Lady Slipper, Cypripedium reginae, is an example of a unique plant that thrives in fens.

Like bogs, fens are more often than not a northern hemisphere phenomenon -- occurring in the northeastern United States, the Great Lakes region, the Rocky Mountains and much of Canada -- and are generally associated with low temperatures and brusk growing seasons, where aplenty precipitation and high humidity cause excessive moisture to accumulate.

Functions & Values of Fens

Fens, like bogs, provide of import benefits in a watershed, including preventing or reducing the take chances of floods, improving h2o quality and providing habitat for unique establish and animal communities.

Fens may exist dominated past woody or herbaceous vegetation. In this photograph, trees are invading an herbaceous fen.

Status of Fens

Like most peatlands, fens experienced a decline in acreage at a rate of nigh eight percent from 1950 to 1970, mostly from mining and draining for cropland, fuel and fertilizer. Because of the big historical loss of this ecosystem blazon, remaining fens are that much more than rare, and it is crucial to protect them. Information technology is important to recognize that while mining and draining these ecosystems provide resources for people, up to x,000 years are required to grade a fen naturally.