Can Artificial Drainage of Wetlands Have Detrimental Effects on the Cha

IntroductionWetland soils be widely diverse. They be raise from the arctic to the tropics. They can be mineral or organic, seasonal or year-round, marine or fresh pissing. The one thing they all admit in common is that, for at least part of the year, they are everlasting(a) with water. This saturation has a significant impact on the soils characteristics such as the biota, chemistry, and physics. However, everywhere the past century more than half of all the wetlands in the get together States have been drained for agriculture and other uses such as construction. When the soils are drained the characteristics are drastically changed. This paper is an attempt to describe the changes in artificially drained soils and to consider a few of the consequences of these changes. BodyThe personal properties of saturated soils vary somewhat from wetland to wetland but are characterized by true processes. One is the interaction of the soil with the watertable. Three patterns of possibl e groundwater lam have been considered water could flow into the saturated areas from the meet area (discharge), making the saturated area the focal point water could flow through swamps because of topical anaesthetic relief (flow-through) or water could flow from the saturated zone into surrounding areas (recharge) possibly due to differential water use by correct communities or pumping (Crownover et al, 1995). There can also be vertical convince of water between the groundwater and saturated soil. For example, capillary effects pull water upward into the soil from the water table. Besides the vertical and horizontal flow of water, the area of the soil taken up by water is important. Wetland soils are either saturated or nearly saturated so that untold of the pore space is... ...ne flatwood landscape Soil Science Society of the States Journal, 59, 1199-1206. Fausey, N.R., Brown, L.C., Belcher, H.W. and Kanwar, R.S. (1995) drain and water quality in the Great Lakes and cornb elt states Journal of Irrigation Drainage Engineering, 121, 283-288. Leventhal, E. (1990). Alternative uses of wetlands other than conventional farming in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska EPA/171/R-92/006, one hundred forty-five p. McBride, M. B. (2003) Environmental Chemistry of Soils Advances in Environmental Research, 8, 5-19Mitsch, W.J. and Gosselink, J.G. (2000). The value of wetlands importance of eggshell and landscape setting. Ecological Economics, 35, 25-33Schipper, L.A., Harfoot, C.G., McFarlane, P.N., and Cooper, (1994) Anaerobic decomposition and denitrification during plant decomposition in an organic soil Journal of Environmental Quality, 23, 923-928