Originally published in 1998, Southern Forested Wetlands is an up to date, one source compendium of current knowledge on the wetland ecology of America’s southern forests. This book presents both the ecological and management aspects of these important ecosystems. The book was compiled by members of the Consortium for Research on southern forested wetlands, and was a collaboration of those working to conserve, study, and manage these economically and environmentally influential areas. The book covers geographic ranges from West Virginia to Florida, to Texas and inland north to Arkansas and Tennessee. It also addresses specific wetland types, including deep-water swamps, major and minor alluvial flood plains, pocosins and Carolina bays, mountain fens, pond cypress swamps, flatwoods wetlands, and mangroves.

“Wetland Habitats of North America is essential reading for everyone who studies, manages, or visits North American wetlands. It fills an important void in the wetland literature, providing accessible and succinct descriptions of all of the continent’s major wetland types.” Arnold van der Valk, Iowa State University “Batzer and Baldwin have compiled the most comprehensive compendium of North American wetland habitats and their ecology that is presently available—a must for wetland scientists and managers.” Irving A. Mendelssohn, Louisiana State University "If you want to gain a broad understanding of the ecology of North America’s diverse wetlands, Wetland Habitats of North America is the book for you. Darold Batzer and Andrew Baldwin have assembled an impressive group of regional wetland scientists who have produced a virtual encyclopedia to the continent’s wetlands. Reading the book is like a road trip across the Americas with guided tours of major wetland types by local experts. Your first stop will be to coastal wetlands with eight chapters covering tidal wetlands along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. Then you’ll travel inland where you can visit any or all of 18 types ranging from bottomland swamps of the Southeast to pothole marshes of the Northern Prairies to montane wetlands of the Rockies to tropical swamps of Central America and desert springs wetlands. All in one book—I’m impressed! Every wetlander should add this book to her or his swampland library. Ralph Tiner, University of Massachusetts–Amherst

Wetlands and riparian areas between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are incredibly diverse and valuable habitats. More than 80 percent of the wildlife species in this intermountain region depend on these wetlands—which account for less than 2 percent of the land area—for their survival. At the same time, the wetlands also serve the water needs of ranchers and farmers, recreationists, vacation communities, and cities. It is no exaggeration to call water the "liquid gold" of the West, and the burgeoning human demands on this scarce resource make it imperative to understand and properly manage the wetlands and riverine areas of the Intermountain West. This book offers land managers, biologists, and research scientists a state-of-the-art survey of the ecology and management practices of wetland and riparian areas in the Intermountain West. Twelve articles examine such diverse issues as laws and regulations affecting these habitats, the unique physiographic features of the region, the importance of wetlands and riparian areas to fish, wildlife, and livestock, the ecological function of these areas, their value to humans, and the methods to evaluate these habitats. The authors also address the human impacts on the land from urban and suburban development, mining, grazing, energy extraction, recreation, water diversions, and timber harvesting and suggest ways to mitigate such impacts.

Wetlands are, by their very nature, ephemeral and transitional, which makes them challenging to characterize. Yet the need for characterizing wetlands continues to grow, particularly as we develop a better understanding of the wealth of ecosystem services that they provide. Wetland Landscape Characterization: Practical Tools, Methods, and Approaches for Landscape Ecology, Second Edition shows how wetland characterization tools, methods, and approaches can be integrated to more effectively address twenty-first-century wetland issues. A Practical Toolbox for Integrated Wetland Landscape Characterization The book explains how to locate, identify, and map the extent of wetlands to learn more about their importance to society and the larger landscape. It examines jurisdictional, regulatory, and practical applications from the scientific, engineering, and lay perspectives. Fully updated, the second edition reflects an emerging infrastructural, ecosystem goods-and-services perspective to better assist readers who may encounter these concepts and challenges as they assess and characterize wetlands. Examples and case studies illustrate a variety of situations and solutions, highlighting the use of current techniques to assess, inventory, and monitor natural resources under changing conditions. These examples offer lessons and ideas for the issues encountered every day by wetland landscape ecology practitioners. The book also refers readers to additional resources to help them solve specific challenges. New in This Edition Updates of practical geospatial methods More project-driven examples A description of the pitfalls of using ecological data at landscape scales, along with solutions Alternative techniques for a variety of practitioners Linkages between field and landscape ecological practices Online resources for practitioners New illustrations This book helps readers develop the concepts, skills, and understanding of how to best achieve project goals in the rapidly changing disciplines of landscape science and wetland ecology and management. A valuable resource, it provides practical tools, methods, and approaches for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing broad-scale wetland projects that take into account critical societal linkages.

"Wetlands" has become a hot word in the current environmental debate. But what does it signify? In 1991, proposed changes in the legal definities of wetlands stirred controversy and focused attention on the scientific and economic aspects of their management. This volume explores how to define wetlands. The committee--whose members were drawn from academia, government, business, and the environmental community--builds a rational, scientific basis for delineating wetlands in the landscape and offers recommendations for further action. Wetlands also discusses the diverse hydrological and ecological functions of wetlands, and makes recommendations concerning so-called controversial areas such as permafrost wetlands, riparian ecosystems, irregularly flooded sites, and agricultural wetlands. It presents criteria for identifying wetlands and explores the problems of applying those criteria when there are seasonal changes in water levels. This comprehensive and practical volume will be of interest to environmental scientists and advocates, hydrologists, policymakers, regulators, faculty, researchers, and students of environmental studies.

This second edition of this important and authoritative survey provides students and researchers with up-to-date and accessible information about the ecology of freshwater and estuarine wetlands. Prominent scholars help students understand both general concepts of different wetland types as well as complex topics related to these dynamic physical environments. Careful syntheses review wetland soils, hydrology, and geomorphology; abiotic constraints for wetland plants and animals; microbial ecology and biogeochemistry; development of wetland plant communities; wetland animal ecology; and carbon dynamics and ecosystem processes. In addition, contributors document wetland regulation, policy, and assessment in the US and provide a clear roadmap for adaptive management and restoration of wetlands. New material also includes an expanded review of the consequences for wetlands in a changing global environment. Ideally suited for wetlands ecology courses, Ecology of Freshwater and Estuarine Wetlands, Second Edition, includes updated content, enhanced images (many in color), and innovative pedagogical elements that guide students and interested readers through the current state of our wetlands.

Swamps and marshes have traditionally been regarded as places of horror and ill health in western culture - places to be feared, drained and filled. In this wide-ranging study, Rod Giblett examines the swamp from a cross-disciplinary standpoint. Using material from fiction, films and popular culture and drawing on literature, cultural studies, philosophy, social theory, critical geography and medical history, he criticises the urge to drain swamps ('the project of modernity') as masculinist and imperialist.

Where can you find mosses that change landscapes, salamanders with algae in their skin, and carnivorous plants containing whole ecosystems in their furled leaves? Where can you find swamp-trompers, wildlife watchers, marsh managers, and mud-mad scientists? In wetlands, those complex habitats that play such vital ecological roles. In Wading Right In, Catherine Owen Koning and Sharon M. Ashworth take us on a journey into wetlands through stories from the people who wade in the muck. Traveling alongside scientists, explorers, and kids with waders and nets, the authors uncover the inextricably entwined relationships between the water flows, natural chemistry, soils, flora, and fauna of our floodplain forests, fens, bogs, marshes, and mires. Tales of mighty efforts to protect rare orchids, restore salt marshes, and preserve sedge meadows become portals through which we visit major wetland types and discover their secrets, while also learning critical ecological lessons. The United States still loses wetlands at a rate of 13,800 acres per year. Such loss diminishes the water quality of our rivers and lakes, depletes our capacity for flood control, reduces our ability to mitigate climate change, and further impoverishes our biodiversity. Koning and Ashworth’s stories captivate the imagination and inspire the emotional and intellectual connections we need to commit to protecting these magical and mysterious places.

Aldo Leopold, father of the "land ethic," once said, "The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to begin with." The concept he expressedâ€"restorationâ€"is defined in this comprehensive new volume that examines the prospects for repairing the damage society has done to the nation's aquatic resources: lakes, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems outlines a national strategy for aquatic restoration, with practical recommendations, and features case studies of aquatic restoration activities around the country. The committee examines: Key concepts and techniques used in restoration. Common factors in successful restoration efforts. Threats to the health of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Approaches to evaluation before, during, and after a restoration project. The emerging specialties of restoration and landscape ecology.