Wetlands and deepwater habitats: A new classification

Excerpt

Adramatic upsurge in people's interest in the many values of wetlands (6), which at one time were thought to have little or no value (1), prompted the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in 1974 to undertake a national wetlands inventory (9). The agency's previous inventory, conducted in 1954 (13), employed a rudimentary system of 20 classes designed primarily to evaluate wetlands for use as waterfowl habitat. The inventory begun in 1974 produced a new classification system useful to a variety of natural resource disciplines. That new classification system evolved slowly, becoming the product of extensive peer review, comments from state and federal agencies, field testing, and use during the early phases of the inventory.

What is a wetland?

Wetland refers to a portion of the continuum from terrestrial to aquatic sites.The concept varies among individuals, dis-ciplines, and government agencies. Tradi-tionally, wetland has been defined in terms of hydrology, soils, and vegetation. The FWS definition, for example, begins with a general statement about hydrology: “Wetlands are lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems where the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by shallow water …