Portal:Wetlands

Portal topics
Activities
Culture
Geography
Health
History
Mathematics
Nature
People
Philosophy
Religion
Society
Technology
Random portal
1310

Wetlands Portal

Introduction

A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique hydric soil. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink and shoreline stability. Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, and the Pantanal in South America. The water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens; and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, and varzea.

The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to inform people about wetland issues.

Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they also play a role in water-sensitive urban design.

Selected article

Blanket bog on Yell, Shetland, with some peat working.
Blanket bog on Yell, Shetland, with some peat working.
Blanket bog or blanket mire, also known as featherbed bog, is an area of peatland, forming where there is a climate of high rainfall and a low level of evapotranspiration, allowing peat to develop not only in wet hollows but over large expanses of undulating ground. The blanketing of the ground with a variable depth of peat gives the habitat type its name. Blanket bogs are found extensively throughout the Northern Hemisphere - well-studied examples are found in Ireland and Britain, but vast areas of the Russian and North American tundra also qualify as blanket bogs.

In the Southern Hemisphere they are less well-developed due to the relatively low latitudes of the main land areas, though similar environments are reported in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands and New Zealand. The blanket bogs known as 'featherbeds' on subantarctic Macquarie Island occur on raised marine terraces; they may be up to 5 m deep, tremble or quake when walked on and can be hazardous to cross. It is doubtful whether the extremely impoverished flora of Antarctica is sufficiently well developed to be considered as blanket bogs.

In some areas of Europe, the spread of blanket bogs is traced to deforestation by prehistoric cultures. In many areas peat is cultivated as a fossil fuel and used either in electricity generation or domestic solid fuel for heating. In the Republic of Ireland, a state owned agency, Bord na Móna, owns large areas of bog land and harvests peat for electricity generation but that peat is mainly from the raised bogs in the central plains. Bord na Móna used to burn peat in the peat fired generating station at Bellacorick but that closed down many years ago and the area now houses a large windfarm.

Some blanket bogs are now preserved by government organisations in both Ireland and Britain, as this habitat is now under threat from extensive harvesting. Examples of protected blanket bogs include Sliabh Beagh, Bellacorick and Airds Moss. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various wetland-related articles on Wikipedia.

Law

Organizations

Topics

Pen & Earth

Things you can do

  • Create articles: There are many articles that have yet to be started... Pick your favorite and start researching!
  • Find photos for articles: Many wetlands–related articles would be substantially better with the addition of one or more photographs. Feel free to take your own and upload them, or find ones with the appropriate licenses and upload them here!
  • Categorize articles: Figure out what categories to add to each article so that others can find them more easily.
  • Expand articles: There are many wetland stubs which could use extensive updates and development.
  • Find sources: Many of our articles are poorly sourced and could use much better citations.
  • Wikify: Add {{Portal|Wetlands}} to the See also sections of Wetlands-related articles.

WikiProjects

WikiProjects
  • WikiProject Birds
  • WikiProject Fishes
  • WikiProject Forestry
  • WikiProject Ecology
  • WikiProject Ecoregions
  • WikiProject Environment
  • WikiProject Plants
  • WikiProject Protected Areas
  • WikiProject Soil
  • WikiProject Water

Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Wikibooks
Books

Commons
Media

Wikinews 
News

Wikiquote 
Quotations

Wikisource 
Texts

Wikiversity
Learning resources

Wikivoyage 
Travel guides

Wiktionary 
Definitions

Wikidata 
Database

Wikispecies 
Species

Portals

Activities Culture Geography Health History Mathematics Nature People Philosophy Religion Society Technology Random portal




This page was last updated at 2021-11-11 12:54 UTC. Update now. View original page.

All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.


Top

If mathematical, chemical, physical and other formulas are not displayed correctly on this page, please useFirefox or Safari