Wetland Buffer Characterization and Public Outreach in North Hampton

This report includes a characterization of wetland buffers and buffer protection in North Hampton and a community outreach newsletter that focuses on the protection of the North Hampton wetland buffers. Consultants from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc conducted field examinations of key North Hampton wetland buffer areas and issued a technical memorandium that characterize wetland buffer areas in the town and discusses of the value of these areas in terms of public interest and property values. Much of the information presented in the technical memo was communicated in an eight-page newsletter produced at Fosters Daily Democrate. Fosters produced 3,000 copies and UNH Mailing Services sent them using saturation mailing rates that delivered one to every household in North Hampton (1925 residences), The newsletter highlights community wetland resources, functions and values of wetland buffers in North Hampton, and actions citizens can take to protect wetland buffers in the community. An electronic version of the newsletter is posted on the Town of North Hampton website

Evaluation of the Iowa Department of Transportation's Compensatory Wetland Mitgation Program, August 30, 2004

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the Compensatory Wetland Mitigation Program at the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) in terms of regulatory compliance. Specific objectives included: 1) Determining if study sites meet the definition of a jurisdictional wetland. 2) Determining the degree of compliance with requirements specified in Clean Water Act Section 404 permits. A total of 24 study sites, in four age classes were randomly selected from over 80 sites currently managed by the Iowa DOT. Wetland boundaries were delineated in the field and mitigation compliance was determined by comparing the delineated wetland acreage at each study site to the total wetland acreage requirements specified in individual CWA Section 404 permits. Of the 24 sites evaluated in this study, 58 percent meet or exceed Section 404 permit requirements. Net gain ranged from 0.19 acre to 27.2 acres. Net loss ranged from 0.2 acre to 14.6 acres. The Denver Bypass 1 site was the worst performer, with zero acres of wetland present on the site and the Akron Wetland Mitigation Site was the best performer with slightly more than 27 acres over the permit requirement. Five of the 10 under-performing sites are more than five years post construction, two are five years post construction, one is three years post construction and the remaining two are one year post construction. Of the sites that meet or exceed permit requirements, approximately 93 percent are five years or less post construction and approximately 43 percent are only one year old. Only one of the 14 successful sites is more than five years old. Using Section 404 permit acreage requirements as the criteria for measuring success, 58 percent of the wetland mitigation sites investigated as part of this study are successful. Using net gain/loss as the measure of success, the Compensatory Wetland Mitigation Program has been successful in creating/restoring nearly 44 acres of wetland over what was required by permits

The beneficial of wetland Tanjung Piai to community

Wetlands are one of the natural resources that can be seen are suffering for the past few years from human activities. The destruction of wetlands not only came from human activities but also from natural event such as continuous erosion that occurs at Tanjung Piai. The destruction of wetlands not only occurs in Malaysia but also in other country. The study was carried out at wetlands located in Tanjung Piai to identify the beneficial of wetland Tanjung Piai to community and wildlife. For the past few years, problem related to water such as flooding and water pollution worsen but wetlands seems to be one of the method to reduce these events. Wetland becomes storage area that accepts rainwater that cannot be accepted by river. Water that went through as groundwater recharge will go through filtration first thus, reducing the unwanted material in the water. Other than that wetland also acts as habitat for animals and measures to reduce erosion. Despite of the benefit of wetlands to community, wetland suffers from pollution, extinction of the mangrove and climate change. The study was carried out through observation and interview on the person in charge of the Tanjung Piai wetland. The objectives of the study are to identify the benefit of the wetland, problems that was suffered by wetland and measures to make sure wetland are in good condition

THE FEASIBILITY OF WETLAND RESTORATION TO REDUCE FLOODING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY: A CASE STUDY OF THE MAPLE RIVER WATERSHED, NORTH DAKOTA

The economic feasibility of alternative wetland restoration activities to store water and reduce flood damage was evaluated in the Maple River Watershed, North Dakota, a sub-watershed of the Red River of the North Watershed. The evaluation was based on recent hydrologic modeling and wetland restoration studies, the National Wetland Inventory, local land rental values, and site-specific historical flood damage. With benefit-cost ratios ranging from 0.08 to 0.13, neither simple wetland restoration based on plugging existing drains, nor restoration with outlet control devices, nor complete restoration intended to provide a full range of wetland-based environmental services were economically feasible over a 20-year future period. Peak flood stages and flood damage would need to be reduced by between 4 and 12 percent in order for wetland restoration options to break even. The inclusion of additional wetland benefits did not make wetland restoration economically feasible. It is, therefore, not recommended that public funds be used for extensive wetland restoration projects throughout the Maple River Watershed or the Red River Valley in order to reduce flood damage.Economic feasibility, wetland restoration, flooding, Red River Valley, Land Economics/Use,

Wetlands and coastal water quality: Should wetland size matter?

Generally, wetlands are thought to perform water purification functions, removing contaminants as water flows through sediment and vegetation. This paradigm was challenged when Grant et al. (2001) reported that Talbert Salt Marsh (Figure 1.) increased fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) output to coastal waters, contributing to poor coastal water quality. Like most southern California wetlands, Talbert Salt Marsh has been severely degraded. It is a small (10 ha), restored wetland, only 1/100th its original size, and located at the base of a highly urbanized watershed. Is it reasonable to expect that this or any severely altered wetland will perform the same water purification benefits as a natural wetland? To determine how a more pristine southern California coastal wetland attenuated bacterial contaminants, we investigated FIB concentrations entering and exiting Carpinteria Salt Marsh (Figure 2.), a 93 ha, moderate-sized, relatively natural wetland.(PDF contains 4 pages

A Predictive Algorithm For Wetlands In Deep Time Paleoclimate Models

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas produced in wetland environments via microbial action in anaerobic conditions. If the location and extent of wetlands are unknown, such as for the Earth many millions of years in the past, a model of wetland fraction is required in order to calculate methane emissions and thus help reduce uncertainty in the understanding of past warm greenhouse climates. Here we present an algorithm for predicting inundated wetland fraction for use in calculating wetland methane emission fluxes in deep time paleoclimate simulations. The algorithm determines, for each grid cell in a given paleoclimate simulation, the wetland fraction predicted by a nearest neighbours search of modern day data in a space described by a set of environmental, climate and vegetation variables. To explore this approach, we first test it for a modern day climate with variables obtained from observations and then for an Eocene climate with variables derived from a fully coupled global climate model (HadCM3BL-M2.2). Two independent dynamic vegetation models were used to provide two sets of equivalent vegetation variables which yielded two different wetland predictions. As a first test the method, using both vegetation models, satisfactorily reproduces modern data wetland fraction at a course grid resolution, similar to those used in paleoclimate simulations. We then applied the method to an early Eocene climate, testing its outputs against the locations of Eocene coal deposits. We predict global mean monthly wetland fraction area for the early Eocene of 8 to 10 × 106km2 with corresponding total annual methane flux of 656 to 909 Tg, depending on which of two different dynamic global vegetation models are used to model wetland fraction and methane emission rates. Both values are significantly higher than estimates for the modern-day of 4 × 106km2 and around 190Tg (Poulter et. al. 2017, Melton et. al., 2013