Summer 1999.Lake Chapeau, Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. An aerial close-up view of the created wetlands with a prominent lobe in the foreground. Courtesy NOAA Restoration Center, Erik Zobrist

Wetlands are areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season. Water saturation (hydrology) largely determines how the soil develops and the types of plant and animal communities living in and on the soil. Wetlands may support both aquatic and terrestrial species. The prolonged presence of water creates conditions that favor the growth of specially adapted plants (hydrophytes) and promote the development of characteristic wetland (hydric) soils.

Coastal wetlands in the United States are closely linked to our nation's estuaries, where sea water mixes with fresh water to form an environment of varying salinities. The salt water and the fluctuating water levels (due to tidal action) combine to create a rather difficult environment for most plants. Consequently, many shallow coastal areas are unvegetated mud flats or sand flats. Some plants, however, have successfully adapted to this environment. Certain grasses and grasslike plants that adapt to the saline conditions form tidal salt marshes.

From EPA Wetlands http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/vital/what.html

RELATED LINKS

EPA Wetlands
http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/

EPA Aquatic Resource Monitoring - Wetlands
http://www.epa.gov/nheerl/arm/wetlands.htm

NOAA Office of Habitat Conservatoin, Habitat Protection Division, Wetlands
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/habitatprotection/wetlands/index.htm

NOAA Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management: Coastal Habitats
http://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/habitat.html

NOAA Wetlands Restoration Projects
http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PROJECTS/Wetlands/

NBII Use of LIDAR in Wetland Delineation on West Galveston Island, Texas
http://cswgcin.nbii.org/ecoregion/gulfofmexico/nearshore/wetlands/

NBII Wetland and Seagrass Information System
http://mapserver.harc.edu/website/seagrass/viewer.htm

National Wetlands Newsletter Gulf Coast Article Archive
http://www2.eli.org/nwn/gulf.cfm

NBII Wetlands and Coastal Issues: Gulf of Mexico Coastal Region
http://cswgcin.nbii.org/ecoregion/coastalzone/index.html

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory
http://www.fws.gov/nwi/

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wetlands Mapper
http://wetlandsfws.er.usgs.gov/NWI/index.html

Texas Coastal Wetlands
http://www.texaswetlands.org/index.htm

America’s Wetland Birding Trail along the Louisiana Great Gulf Coast
http://www.louisianatravel.com/explorela/outdoors/birding/