Intro
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: Group of pitcher plants (AP Images)
Wetlands — marshes, swamps, bogs, vernal pools, flood plains and other wet habitats — are areas of Earth that are saturated by water during all or part of the year. They are found in every part of the world and in every climate. Interior wetlands are located where surface water collects or where underground water rises to the surface. Coastal wetlands are created by tides.
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: Egret perched on tree branch (AP Images)
A spectacular diversity of species lives in wetland ecosystems. Inhabitants include microbes, plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish and mammals. Many species of birds and mammals rely on wetlands for food, water and shelter, especially during migration and breeding. Pictured here is a cattle egret in the Great Morass marshland in southeast Jamaica. Jamaica’s longest river, the Black River, runs through the Great Morass.
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: People walking through colorful wetlands park (AP Images)
The Jinghu Urban Wetland Park in east China’s Zhejiang province is a colorful collection of natural freshwater rivers and lakes. It is an example of wetland restoration and sustainable landscape design and is one of nine national urban wetland parks in China.
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: Elephants in wetland (AP Images)
The Deeparbil wetland, a wildlife sanctuary west of Gauhati, India, is another example of wetland conservation. Deeparbil is near the Garbhanga Reserve Forest where elephants live. The elephants use the wetlands as a source of water and a place to cool off.
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: Birds in garbage dump (AP Images)
Pollution and human consumption are endangering many ecosystems around the globe, including wetlands. Here, endangered greater adjutant storks stand on a garbage dump on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. Over the last half century, mankind has degraded Earth’s life-giving water ecosystems to an extent unprecedented in human history. In 2005, the first comprehensive environmental audit of the planet, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, reported that 15 of Earth’s 24 major ecosystems were being used in an unsustainable manner.
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CREDIT: © AP Images
ALT: Spoonbill bird in wetland (AP Images)
In the United Kingdom, the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds works to transform farmland on the island back into coastal marshland to restore the island’s wetlands and to lure back several species of birds. The expanded wetlands not only are beneficial to animal life, but the marshlands serve as shock absorbers of the ocean’s tides.
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CREDIT: Public domain
ALT: Florida everglades (Wikipedia Commons)
Up to half the world’s wetlands, including such treasures as Florida’s Everglades, vanished or were severely damaged in the 20th century drive to obtain more arable land and water for agriculture. Wetlands are nature’s sponges, protectively absorbing and gradually releasing floodwaters, replenishing underground aquifers, filtering out pollutants and excess nutrients, and helping moderate regional climates.
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CREDIT: © Svetlana Makarova
ALT: Wetlands (Svetlana Makarova)
Wetlands, such as this one outside Moscow, are essential to human life. Wetlands do many things, such as holding heavy rainfall to prevent flooding downstream; filtering excess nutrients and pollutants from water; recharging underground aquifers on which billions of people depend for drinking water; protecting against soil erosion; and contributing to climate change mitigation by storing significant amounts of carbon dioxide.
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CREDIT: © Minden Pictures
ALT: Frog head poking out from water (Minden Pictures)
Wetlands are found all over the world and contain a variety of animal life. The Rio Grande leopard frog, pictured here, is native to the wetlands and waterways of the southern United States and Mexico. While the Rio Grande leopard frog is found in many parts of the two countries, habitat destruction is negatively affecting the species.