Expert Voices - Ducks Unlimited

Wetlands at Work

It is the ability to filter and recharge water supplies that puts wetlands at the forefront of the solution to the world’s water problems. To understand the wetland solution, one must first understand the problem: Polluted runoff water contaminating our waterways. 

It starts in the watershed.  A watershed is an area of land that drains or seeps water into a river, lake, estuary, or ocean.  As runoff water travels through a watershed, it collects nutrients, silt, pesticides, and other pollutants along the way.  Since wetlands typically occur in low areas of a watershed, they can collect and filter the runoff water before it enters the main waterway. 

As the runoff water moves through a wetland, sediments, nutrients, and other pollutants settle to the bottom, where many of the contaminants and nutrients are degraded or absorbed as nourishment by surrounding plants and organisms.  The end result is cleaner, purer water, which is gradually released into nearby waterways.  In many cases, the water retained by wetlands can permeate the soil and recharge local and regional groundwater supplies. 

This sponge-like ability to collect and hold water also helps reduce the severity and duration of flooding by retaining excess storm water and slowly releasing it into larger bodies of water. 

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