Wetlands are ecosystems where water covers the soil, or is near the surface of the soil, for most or all of the year. You can find wetlands on every continent except Antarctica, from the tundra to the tropics. Wetlands provide a habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals. On North Carolina's Outer Banks, coastal marshes are home to waterfowl, fish, birds, mammals, an…
Wetlands are important to the Earth in many ways. They produce a great variety of grasses, trees, and flowers. Many of these plants provide food and shelter for the birds, amphibians, reptiles, and insects that live in the wetland year-round, as well as the migratory birds who use the wetlands for their breeding and resting grounds. Many species of fish rely on estuaries, salt marshes, and coasta…
Wetlands provide a home for a wide variety of animals. Amphibians, including salamanders, frogs, and toads, breed in the wetland habitat. Many species lay their eggs underwater. Others lay their eggs on the moist land nearby. Fire salamanders are nocturnal. At night, they hunt for prey including insects, spiders, earthworms, and slugs. The northern leopard frog lives near ponds and ma…
Knowing what we do about the benefits of healthy wetlands, it's hard to imagine purposefully destroying them. Unfortunately, people didn't always understand the importance or usefulness of these marshes, swamps, and bogs. When they encountered a wetland area, settlers saw mosquito breeding grounds and wet, mucky soil. On top of that, there was the smell; the unpleasant odor of metha…
The Florida Everglades wetland covers much of southern Florida. It is one of the largest wetlands in the world, a massive watershed that includes many different habitats that are home to plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. The area below the yellow line is the Everglades ecosystem. It includes Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades, the Big Cypress Swamp, the Atlantic Coastal Ridge…
In 1991, the Florida legislature passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Everglades Protection Act, designed to restore the Everglades. One project of the plan is to build constructed, or man-made, wetlands. These artificial marshes will filter nutrients from agricultural runoff just as natural wetlands have always done, and they will supply clean water to the plants and animals living in the Evergla…
The Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary is a story of innovation and success. Up until the 1970s, the people of Arcata, California, along with other nearby towns, depended on outdated wastewater treatment systems that dumped raw sewage into nearby Humboldt Bay. The Clean Water Act made it illegal to release untreated waste into the water. In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act. The o…
Water treatment in the constructed marsh begins when sewage flows into the collection area. Here, wastewater is separated from sludge. The sludge is treated and ultimately becomes compost to be used on the town's flowerbeds and forest floors. The wastewater travels to an oxidation pond, where sunlight kills most of the microbes. It then flows into a series of marsh ponds and mixes wit…
Wildlife that once struggled to survive now thrives in northern California's Arcata marsh. Can the bar-tailed godwit enjoy a similar success story? The species depends on the wetlands that surround the Yellow Sea, including the Saemangeum wetland in South Korea. Sadly, this wetland underwent a devastating change in 2006, when South Koreans completed a fifteen-year project to build a seawal…
brackish (BRAK-ish): slightly salty constructed marshes (kuhn-STRUHKT-id MARSH-iz): man-made marshes, built to imitate nature dikes (DIKES): walls or dams built to hold back water ecosystems (EE-koh-sisstuhmz): communities of plants and animals living in their environments endangered species (en-DAYN-jurd SPEE-sheez): a species of plant or animal that is in danger of extinction estuaries (ESS-chu…