wetland

Permanently wet land area or habitat. Wetlands include areas of marsh, fen, bog, flood plain, and shallow coastal areas. Wetlands are extremely fertile. They provide warm, sheltered waters for fisheries, lush vegetation for grazing livestock, and an abundance of wildlife. Estuaries and seaweed beds are more than 16 times as productive as the open ocean.

The term is often more specifically applied to a naturally flooding area that is managed for agriculture or wildlife. A water meadow, where a river is expected to flood grazing land at least once a year thereby replenishing the soil, is a traditional example.

In the USA, wetlands have been destroyed at a rate of about 600 hectares a day for the last century, though 244,000 hectares were restored 1990–1992. However, in January 2001, the US Supreme Court ruled that the federal government does not have the authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate isolated wetlands that harbour migratory birds. The act may be changed to ensure protection.

In August 2001, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency in charge of developing and protecting wetlands, proposed rule changes that would allow developers more freedom to destroy such areas. The proposed changes would give developers the right to destroy up to 91 m/300 ft of a stream under certain conditions without federal supervision or extensive review. Developers would also be freed from a requirement to restore or create 0.4 ha/1 acre of wetland for every 0.4 ha/1 acre they destroy.

Approximately 60% of the world's wetlands are peat, and in May 1999 the Ramsar Convention on the Conservation of Wetlands approved a peatlands action plan that should have a major impact on the conservation of peat bogs.