Giant 'living tractors' are bringing nature back to post-industrial wastelands, bbc.co.uk (Aug 29, 2024) - How China’s most ‘futuristic’ city restored its mangroves, dialogue.earth (Jul 11, 2024)
- Food forests grown by Nile Basin farmers restore wetlands and bring back a turtle, news.mongabay.com (Feb 28, 2024)
- Low-carbon milk to AI irrigation: tech startups powering Latin America’s green revolution, theguardian.com (Jan 30, 2024)
Community action projects[edit | edit source]
Events[edit | edit source]
Feb 02, 2025 (Sun) — World Wetlands Day, Feb 2, annually, worldwetlandsday.org- Jun 05, 2025 (Thu) — World Environment Day, June 5, annually, worldenvironmentday.global
News and comment[edit | edit source]
- Spanish minister hails deal to save Andalucía wetlands as a model for green transition, theguardian.com (Dec 27, 2023)
- This Northern Manhattan Wetland Has Faced Climate-Change-Induced Erosion and Sea Level Rise. A Living Shoreline Has Reimagined the Space, insideclimatenews.org (Aug 03, 2023) — In the process to create a climate-resilient city, the shoreline restoration of one of the largest remaining wetlands in Manhattan has succeeded due to community engagement and consistent stewardship. By Juanita Gordon
- How China protects its ‘unofficial’ wetlands, China Dialogue (Jul 24, 2023)
- Mangrove forests: How 40 million Australian trees died of thirst, BBC News (Aug 14, 2022)
Wetlands and local communities[edit | edit source]
The value of a wetland to local communities typically involves first mapping a region's wetlands, then assessing the functions and ecosystem services the wetlands provide individually and cumulatively, and finally evaluating that information to prioritize or rank individual wetlands or wetland types for conservation, management, restoration, or development. Over the longer term, it requires keeping inventories of known wetlands and monitoring a representative sample of the wetlands to determine changes due to both natural and human factors.
A wetland needs to be monitored over time to assess whether it is functioning at an ecologically sustainable level or whether it is becoming degraded. Degraded wetlands will suffer a loss in water quality, loss of sensitive species, and aberrant functioning of soil geochemical processes.W
see also Wetlands and sustainable livelihood
Wetlands and Climate emergency[edit | edit source]
Studies have favorably identified the potential for coastal wetlands (also called blue carbon ecosystems) to provide some degree of climate change mitigation in two ways: by conservation, reducing the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the loss and degradation of such habitats, and by restoration, to increase carbon dioxide drawdown and its long-term storage. W
The restoration of coastal blue carbon ecosystems is highly advantageous for climate change adaptation, coastal protection, food provision and biodiversity conservation. W
Wetlands and Ecological emergency[edit | edit source]
Wetland systems' rich biodiversity has become a focal point catalysed by the Ramsar Convention and World Wildlife Fund.[71] The impact of maintaining biodiversity is seen at the local level through job creation, sustainability, and community productivity. A good example is the Lower Mekong basin which runs through Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, supporting over 55 million people. W
Some types of wetlands can serve as fire breaks that help slow the spread of minor wildfires. Larger wetland systems can influence local precipitation patterns. Some boreal wetland systems in catchment headwaters may help extend the period of flow and maintain water temperature in connected downstream waters. Pollination services are supported by many wetlands which may provide the only suitable habitat for pollinating insects, birds, and mammals in highly developed areas. W
Wetlands and sustainable livelihood[edit | edit source]
Wetlands are vital ecosystems that provide livelihoods for the millions of people who live in and around them. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) called for different sectors to join forces to secure wetland environments in the context of sustainable development and improving human wellbeing.
A three-year project carried out by Wetlands International in partnership with the International Water Management Institute found that it is possible to conserve wetlands while improving the livelihoods of people living among them. Case studies conducted in Malawi and Zambia looked at how dambos – wet, grassy valleys or depressions where water seeps to the surface – can be farmed sustainably to improve livelihoods. Mismanaged or overused dambos often become degraded, however, using a knowledge exchange between local farmers and environmental managers, a protocol was developed using soil and water management practices. Project outcomes included a high yield of crops, development of sustainable farming techniques, and adequate water management generating enough water for use as irrigation. Before the project, there were cases where people had died from starvation due to food shortages. By the end of it, many more people had access to enough water to grow vegetables. A key achievement was that villagers had secure food supplies during long, dry months. They also benefited in other ways: nutrition was improved by growing a wider range of crops, and villagers could also invest in health and education by selling produce and saving money. W
Wetland restoration[edit | edit source]
Restoration and restoration ecologists intend to return wetlands to their natural trajectory by aiding directly with the natural processes of the ecosystem. These direct methods vary with respect to the degree of physical manipulation of the natural environment and each are associated with different levels of restoration. Restoration is needed after disturbance or perturbation of a wetland. There is no one way to restore a wetland and the level of restoration required will be based on the level of disturbance although, each method of restoration does require preparation and administration. W
The ideas from traditional ecological knowledge can be applied as a holistic approach to the restoration of wetlands. These ideas focus more on responding to the observations detected from the environment considering that each part of a wetland ecosystem is interconnected. Applying these practices on specific locations of wetlands increase productivity, biodiversity, and improve its resilience. These practices include monitoring wetland resources, planting propagules, and addition of key species in order to create a self-sustaining wetland ecosystem. W
Wetland conservation[edit | edit source]
Wetland conservation is aimed at protecting and preserving areas of land including marshes, swamps, bogs, and fens that are covered by water seasonally or permanently due to a variety of threats from both natural and anthropogenic hazards. Some examples of these hazards include habitat loss, pollution, and invasive species. Wetland vary widely in their salinity levels, climate zones, and surrounding geography and play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity, ecosystem services, and support human communities. Wetlands cover at least six percent of the Earth and have become a focal issue for conservation due to the ecosystem services they provide. More than three billion people, around half the world's population, obtain their basic water needs from inland freshwater wetlands. They provide essential habitats for fish and various wildlife species, playing a vital role in purifying polluted waters and mitigating the damaging effects of floods and storms. Furthermore, they offer a diverse range of recreational activities, including fishing, hunting, photography, and wildlife observation.
About Wetlands[edit | edit source]
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally for a shorter periods. Flooding results in oxygen-poor (anoxic) processes taking place, especially in the soils. Wetlands form a transitional zone between waterbodies and dry lands, and are different from other terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems due to their vegetation's roots having adapted to oxygen-poor waterlogged soils. They are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as habitats to a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals, with often improved water quality by the plants removing excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates.
Wetlands exist on every continent, except Antarctica. The water in wetlands is either freshwater, brackish or saltwater. The main types of wetland are defined based on the dominant plants and the source of the water. For example, marshes are wetlands dominated by emergent herbaceous vegetation such as reeds, cattails and sedges. Swamps are dominated by woody vegetation such as trees and shrubs (although reed swamps in Europe are dominated by reeds, not trees). Mangrove forest are wetlands with mangroves, halophytic woody plants that have evolved to tolerate salty water.
Examples of wetlands classified by the sources of water include tidal wetlands, where the water source is ocean tides); estuaries, water source is mixed tidal and river waters; floodplains, water source is excess water from overflowed rivers or lakes; and bogs and vernal ponds, water source is rainfall or meltwater. The world's largest wetlands include the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the Pantanal in South America, and the Sundarbans in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.
Wetlands contribute many ecosystem services that benefit people. These include for example water purification, stabilization of shorelines, storm protection and flood control. In addition, wetlands also process and condense carbon (in processes called carbon fixation and sequestration), and other nutrients and water pollutants. Wetlands can act as a sink or a source of carbon, depending on the specific wetland. If they function as a carbon sink, they can help with climate change mitigation. However, wetlands can also be a significant source of methane emissions due to anaerobic decomposition of soaked detritus, and some are also emitters of nitrous oxide.
Humans are disturbing and damaging wetlands for example by oil and gas extraction, building infrastructure, overgrazing of livestock, overfishing, alteration of wetlands including dredging and draining, nutrient pollution and water pollution. Environmental degradation threatens wetlands more than any other ecosystem on Earth, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2005. Methods exist for assessing wetland ecological health. These methods have contributed to wetland conservation by raising public awareness of the functions that wetlands can provide. Since 1971, work under an international treaty seeks to identify and protect "wetlands of international importance."
See also
- Mangrove swamps
- Constructed wetlands (category)
