Nature Atlas

How Nature Works
Articles

Not One Wetland But Five, All Sharing a Name

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Learn More
Not One Wetland But Five, All Sharing a Name

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Ask what a wetland is and most people picture a marsh. NOAA's own classification is wider than that single image. It sorts wetlands into five general types by where the water that saturates them comes from: marine wetlands on the open coast, estuarine wetlands where a river's fresh water meets the tide, riverine wetlands strung along rivers, lacustrine wetlands fringing lakes, and palustrine wetlands, the category that actually holds the marshes, swamps, fens and bogs most people mean when they say the word. Common names pile up across all five: NOAA lists marshes, estuaries, mangroves, mudflats, mires, ponds, fens, swamps, deltas and coral reefs among the terms that end up describing one wetland type or another. That range is worth sitting with, because it means a coral reef and a mountain bog, two ecosystems that share almost nothing about temperature, salinity or the species living in them, both qualify as wetlands under the same hydrological test. What unites the five types is never climate. It is water sitting on or in the land long enough to shape what grows there, which is also why this atlas keeps Wetlands as a biome defined by hydrology rather than by a temperature or rainfall figure the way Tundra or Tropical Rainforest are.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Article On

Sources
What Is a Wetland? (NOAA Ocean Service)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationWhat is a wetland?View the Source
What Is a Wetland? (NOAA Ocean Service)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationIn Category: ArticlesView the Source
What Is a Wetland? (NOAA Ocean Service)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationArticle On: WetlandsView the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.