Essay On Wetlands

INTRODUCTION:

The aim of this research project is to determine whether the Reddam House Waterfall Estate Wetland is healthy and what type of wetland it is. For the reason that it is a wetland that is not entirely left untouched due to mass construction around it I question the validity that it is a healthy wetland and the fact that there is still construction going on may harm animals and some vegetation.

In the winter the air gets drier and there is less rain therefore the water will be less in the winter. This means that animals may leave and some birds may migrate for the season as well as some vegetation becoming dry. This can mean that the wetland is a fen. The plants that fill wet prairie are sedges, weeping willows, herbaceous plants and ferns with numerous grasses. To determine whether a wetland is considered healthy the animals have to be thriving and plants have to grow in wet saturated soil.

This helps determine the layout of a wetland and how its water is formed or how water leaves the wetland. There are primarily 4 ways water can enter and leave a wetland 1) precipitation 2) evaporation 3) Groundwater inflow and outflow 4) Surface water inflow and outflow. (Collins, 2005)

Hydrophytes are aquatic plants that are found in wetlands it is defined as "an individual plant adapted for life in water or periodically flooded and/or saturated soils (hydric soils) and growing in wetlands and deep-water habitats; it may represent the entire population of a species or only a subset of individuals so adapted” Tiner (1999).

Wetlands are typically harsh for plant life to thrive as the changing water conditions make it difficult for plants to grow or adapt. Seasonal wetlands are affected the most as they change from dry conditions to wet conditions or vice versa. This essentially means that the conditions are unstable or not entirely consistent. (Grillas & Roché,