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  • 10 years ago
What are wetlands?
Lands that are soaked in water are called wetlands. Wetlands are highly productive and provide place and food resources for a wide range of species.

There are different types of Wetland regions found in different places in world, such as Hudson Bay in Western America, Bogs Wetlands, Coastal wetlands.

An interesting fact about how wetlands became home to various animals is, with the development of civilized humans started conquering forests forcing the wild animals to flee. There was no place for animals to survive. So they migrated and took refuge in wetlands. Benefits provided by the wetlands cannot be measured in money, but if the wetlands were to disappear from the face of earth, the world would surely be a poor place to live in.


A patch of land that develops pools of water after a rain storm would not be considered a "wetland," even though the land is wet. Wetlands have unique characteristics: they are generally distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level and on the types of plants that thrive within them. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a water table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants.
A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil and hydrophytes.
Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. Mitsch and Gosselink write that wetlands exist "...at the interface between truly terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic systems, making them inherently different from each other, yet highly dependent on both."
In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions.
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