America’s wetlands provide tourism revenue, drinking water maintenance, natural disaster buffer zones, shoreline erosion control and invaluable ecosystem services. The productivity of wetlands ecosystems rivals rain forests and coral reefs. Wetlands account for a mere 5% of land area in the contiguous United States, but provide habitat and protection for one third of threatened and endangered species.
Healthy wetland ecosystems maintain water quality, reduce municipal water treatment costs and absorb excess water during heavy rains. wetlands capture and “slowly release flood water and snow melt, recharge groundwater, act as filters to cleanse water of impurities, recycle nutrients, and provide recreation and wildlife viewing opportunities for millions of people”. New studies suggest that wetlands can moderate climate change and maintain atmospheric quality. Wetland plant communities provide a net sink for carbon dioxide, off-setting global annual greenhouse gas emissions. However, 50% of the nation’s wetlands have declined or been lost to development in the past 250 years.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is the federal agency tasked with managing these ecosystems and tracking their trends over time. This information is compiled and distributed as the National Wetlands Inventory, a publicly available resource “that provides detailed information on the abundance, characteristics, and distribution of US wetlands”. NWI’s data is key to individuals and companies that look to align themselves with United State Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Clean Water Act regulations and mitigate damage to wetland ecosystems.
What can Banks Environmental Data do to help?
Banks Environmental provides site-specific wetlands inventories to facilitate evidenced-based land management and development decisions. We use the NWI-approved Cowardin 2.0 wetland classification hierarchy, and report a clear positive/negative picture of wetlands features on and around your property. These reports provide a detailed breakdown of any identified wetlands on your site and fulfill level one of USEPA’s Monitoring and Assessment solution.
Links:
- EPA Regional Wetlands Contacts
- Bi-monthly Wetland Newsletter: Wetland Breaking News
- EPA Landowner Partnerships
- Wetland Image Gallery
- NWI Overview
- Wetlands Monitoring and Assessment
Christine Randolph
Banks Environmental Data