An overview of the history and breadth of wetland management practices

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-15-2021

Abstract

Wetland management practices range across a continuum from sustainably harvesting wetland flora and/or fauna, through low-intensity management of surface water, and culminating with high-intensity control of surface water and ground surface elevation. In pristine landscapes, management would be unnecessary to sustain natural conditions, including natural cycles of disturbance and succession and natural amounts of flood stress and salinity stress. In highly humanized landscapes however, management is needed to offset exotic species and alterations to flood stress, salinity stress, eutrophication, disturbance regimes, and surface and groundwater dynamics. Thus, management is needed to make wetlands more natural, more productive, and less likely to be developed. This review classified management practices as (i) sustainably harvesting wetland flora and/or fauna; (ii) retaining or restoring the sustainable harvest of wetland flora or fauna with agricultural practices that are no longer economically viable; (iii) prescribed fire; (iv) minimizing wetland ditching and offsite dredging; (v) managing surface water within wetlands; (vi) managing estuarine gradients; (vii) constructing wetlands to treat wastewater; (viii) using dredged material to create wetlands to provide general wetland functions; (ix) ceasing forced drainage of subsided, former wetlands to restore function; (x) ceasing permanent flooding to restore function; (xi) using tidal or riverine energy to recreate wetlands; and (xii) excavating uplands to create wetlands. Management and the associated protection from direct and indirect human actions that is required to manage a wetland are expensive. Thus, income from carbon credits might partly justify management and prevent the conversion of managed wetlands into developed lands. Such income will only delay the inevitable, however, if human populations do not stabilize.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Wetland Carbon and Environmental Management

First Page

73

Last Page

101

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