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What are Wetlands?
Though lacking the glamour and mysticism of rainforests and coral reefs, wetlands are their equals in terms of being among the most productive ecosystems in the world. While most Americans view the rainforests and reefs of distant lands as “exotic”, most wetlands are viewed with disdain as disease producing swamps where you sink up to your knees in muck. In part, because of this attitude and a failure to recognize their importance, wetlands in the United States have been destroyed at an alarming rate, often with the full consent and assistance of the government.
There are a variety of definitions ascribed to wetlands including those with a scientific basis and those that are used for regulatory purposes. Scientists tend to take a broader look than the government and generally consider wetlands to be lands where water covers the soil or where water is at or near the surface, covering the root zone for all or part of the year. In addition, the presence of water is the dominant factor in determining soil development as well as the plant and animal varieties that inhabit the area.
From a governmental perspective, several definitions have been promulgated for regulatory purposes, the most important of which is contained in the Clean Water Act of 1972.
The Clean Water Act (CWA) defines wetlands as:
“Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas." (40 CFR 232.2(r))
This definition is accepted by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), and it forms the basis for the regulations established to identify and delineate wetlands and their boundaries. Under these regulations an area must have three characteristics to be considered a wetland, those being wetlands hydrology, hydrophytes, and hydric soils.
Though lacking true regulatory authority, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is actively involved in wetland analysis. For their purposes, a wetland is defined as:
Lands that are transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems where the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by shallow water, and that have one or more of the following attributes:
- At least periodically, the land supports predominantly hydrophytes;
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- The substrate is predominantly undrained hydric soil; and,
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- The substrate is non-soil and is saturated with water or covered by shallow water at some time during the growing season of each year.
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The critical distinction between these two definitions is that the Corps, which has primary jurisdictional authority over wetlands, requires all three characteristics (hydrology, hydrophytes, and hydric soils) to be present before an area is classified as a wetland, whereas, the FWS definition recognizes that an area can be lacking in one or more characteristic while still being a fully functioning wetland resource.
It is interesting to note that while the Corps often mandates that a developer construct new wetlands to mitigate those destroyed as part of a project, the newly created “wetlands” do not met their own definitional standards. Think about the reason why and check your answer in the section on Mitigation and Remediation. |
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