Nahant Marsh

Giving full credit to restricting the Mississippi River as the culprit for loss of wetlands is not accurate. The booming oil and gas exploration of the 1970’s and 1980’s merits a name on the marquee as well. The pipelines and canals used to transport the resources to the outside world placed a great deal of stress on the fragile wetlands. Erosion from the barges in and out of the marshes as well as the salt water allowed into the fresh water, providing a precarious habitat for fresh water species – flora and fauna alike. Plants provide root systems to hold soil in place. Fish and fowl provide an economy for the area. Enter

Much of the coast of Texas is made up of marshes which are wetlands where a variety

Based on research completed by University of Minnesota soil scientists, the state mandates that every wetland should be protected by a 50-foot buffer zone. The City of Lilliput, a rural town located 30 miles north of St. Cloud, Minnesota, increased the buffer zone to150 feet in1990 within their municipality. The rationale behind Lilliput’s increase was because the town is zoned for predominantly rural uses, i.e. farming and cattle ranching. Due to the animal wasted and farmers’ use of pesticides on their crops, the Town Council felt that increasing the buffer around surrounding wetlands would better protect it from these sources of contamination than would the state minimum of 50

Ducks Unlimited tries to revert these watersheds back to their natural levels by draining the wetlands that have extremely high levels of contaminants in the water. They then clean the soil in the habitat and find a way to decrease the extra contaminates from entering the watershed. Next they will pump healthy water back into the wetlands and install buffer strips that act like a filter that will catch the extra nutrients and silt.

Louisiana should be concerned about the wetlands because of the wildlife and fisheries. Without it, Louisiana would not be able to supply seafood and wildlife. Another concern, is the land going under and people could lose their homes. According to Allured and Martin, “the destruction of the wetlands came from the coastal and offshore oil and gas development” (p.332). Also, there is some thought that humans play a role in the destruction. According to Allured and Martin, “swamps symbolize as dark and chaotic places of the earth” and “marsh as a type of wet area that harbored disease” (p. 333). The importance of ascertaining the cause of the vanishing wetlands is to help restore the wetlands and protect from a hurricane

Soil type and adaptation of that soil. What is different about wetland soil? How can we recognize it?

I know this because in the passage it states “Wetlands along the southern coastlines of the United States serve as natural speed bumps to approaching hurricanes by starving them of warm ocean water and creating physical barriers to surging flood waters. However, in the last 100 years, the construction of levees and canals has turned thousands of square miles of wetland habitat into open water. This video from NOVA science NOW explores the importance of these critical habitats and examines the damage Hurricane Katrina caused to one stretch of Louisiana wetland (History 2010).

9) A diverse wetlands ecosystem would result from the preservation of non tidal habitats including seasonal ponds/sand flats and perennial brackish ponds.

Abiotic factors in the wetlands are mainly the soil texture, water quality and topography. Examples of this do include the soil in the wetlands.

When gathering data from the modern marsh, eight different quadrants that were 15 m apart from each other were examined for plant presence. The most vegetation diversity was observed in the mid-marsh region, with living and dead spartina, glass warts, and salt warts. Interestingly, there is a sharp shift from 71% spartina and 13% salt warts at 45m into the marsh to 93% salt warts and 7% spartina at 60m. These sudden shifts in plant type abundance throughout the marsh from the marsh border to 105m into the marsh (Figure -). Salt warts were the most copious, followed by spartina, and glass warts with the least occurrences in the marsh. One the marsh border, needle rush dominates with ~70% coverage, alongside sea oxeye, which also make a minor appearance 15m into the

The physical structures of wetlands are shaped by geomorphological processes, which involve the movement of mass and fault movement.The Gwydir Wetlands are part of a wider area of wetlands which originally covered over 200,000 ha but has been reduced to just over 100,000 ha in the upper parts of the Murray-Darling Basin.They are the most significant inland wetlands systems in New South Wales.When flooded they form an important site for breeding waterbirds

Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year. The amount of water saturation plays a tremendous role in determining soil development and the wildlife communities interacting with it, both terrestrial and aquatic. Abiotic and biotic factors such as topography, climate, vegetation, and human disturbance give way to a wide variety of wetlands, but for the most part can be generalized into two main categories. Tidal wetlands are those found close to an ocean and are linked with estuaries, providing an environment with fluctuating salinities. The combination of salt water and differing water levels from tides create a harsh habitat for most plants. However, some species are able to thrive in

Many of the world’s salt marsh habitats have also been lost over the last several centuries to filling, draining, and diking (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 2008). New England has lost an estimated one third of its salt marshes since 1777 (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 2008; Bromberg and Bertness, 2005) as a result of diking, railroads and road construction, levee building and other purposes (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 2008). While the diking and impoundment of the salt marshes created more area for development, the ecological structure, as well as the benefits and ecological services the salt marshes provided, were eliminated in the process (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 2008; Thelen, 2009). This

Wetlands are, quite simply wet lands. The word “wetlands” is the collective term for marshes, swamps, bogs, and similar areas. Here in Florida, wetlands are quite abundant. They can

Wetlands play a major role in the ecosystem as the provides habitats for animals as well as purify water and our wetland at Reddam House acts as a purification for water that passes it as well as a habitat for many birds and insects.