What are Wetlands?
Last week's beaver article touched on freshwater wetlands, though the focus was primarily on beavers. As a tangential follow up, this week's article will be going more in depth about the different types of wetlands and will dive deeper into their associated benefits.
A wetland is an area where water covers the soil or is present or near the surface of the soil. While wetlands can vary widely due to factors like location, climate, vegetation, and soils, there are two categories of wetlands: coastal/tidal wetlands and inland wetlands. Coastal wetlands are predictably found on the coast of large bodies of water, such as the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, and can consist of sand flats, mangrove swamps, or tidal salt marshes, whereas non-tidal wetlands are found inland, and can include wet meadows or bogs. Wetlands can be found all over the globe, even in permafrost areas due to seasonal warming patterns!
Wetlands are important because they help filter and trap pollutants. Not only do they absorb runoff and mitigate flooding, but they can slow down the flow of water to settle sediment. In fact, wetlands are so efficient at filtering pollutants that the state of Michigan launched a pilot program using wetlands to combat nutrient pollution from agricultural operations around Lake Erie!
Wetlands are vital because they also provide special habitats for animals and plants that cannot be recreated elsewhere; wet-mesic flatwoods, for instance, are an imperiled community found only around the glaciated Midwest and provide essential shelter to migratory birds that otherwise could face extinction.
The inhabitants then can add to wetlands' ability to clean the environment-- vultures and other scavengers, for example, can eliminate flesh from recently deceased creatures more efficiently than, say, rats or dogs, removing the chance of diseases like rabies or anthrax being transmitted to humans. Additionally, the biodiverse wetlands can support plants and soil microbes that can bioremediate pollutants.
Wetlands overall are losing their protections and are threatened further by climate change. While there has been an uptick in support for beavers and beaver-created wetlands, it is not enough to protect these sensitive areas. On top of preventing pollution, you can help these habitats by speaking up against projects that would destroy wetlands, such as the proposed Topgolf in Canton, Michigan. For context, there already exist six indoor driving ranges between Novi and Canton, and there are 77 golf courses within 20 miles of Detroit; a new golf facility is not the solution to a lack of community engagement and third spaces, and this can only hurt more than it can help. For further reading, please refer to the hyperlinked articles!