This book delves into human-induced and natural impacts on coastal wetlands, intended or otherwise, through a series of vignettes that elucidate the environmental insults and efforts at amelioration and remediation. The alteration, and subsequent restoration, of wetland habitats remain key issues among coastal scientists. These topics are introduced through case studies and pilot programs that are designed to better understand the best practices of trying to save what is left of these fragile ecosystems. Local approaches, as well as national and international efforts to restore the functionality of marsh systems are summarily approached and evaluated by their efficacy in producing resilient reclamations in terms of climate-smart habitat conservation. The outlook of this work is global in extent and local by intent. Included here in summarized form are professional opinions of experts in the field that investigate the crux of the matter, which proves to be human pressure on coastal wetland environments. Even though conservation and preservation of these delicate environmental systems may be coming at a later date, many multi-pronged approaches show promise through advances in education, litigation, and engineering to achieve sustainable coastal systems. The examples in this book are not only of interest to those working exclusively with coastal wetlands, but also to those working to protect the surrounding coastal areas of all types.

This book examines a wide range of innovative approaches for coastal wetlands restoration and explains how we should use both academic research and practitioners’ findings to influence learning, practice, policy and social change. For conservationists, tidal flats and coastal wetlands are regarded as among the most important areas to conserve for the health of the entire oceanic environment. As the number of restoration projects all over the world increases, this book provides a unique assessment of coastal wetland restorations by examining existing community perceptions and by drawing on the knowledge and expertise of both academics and practitioners. Based on a four-year sociological study across three different cultural settings – England, Japan and Malaysia – the book investigates how citizens perceive the existing environment; how they discuss the risks and benefits of restoration projects; how perceptions change over time; and how governmental and non-governmental organisations work with the various community perceptions on the ground. By comparing and contrasting the results from these three countries, the book offers guidance for future conservation and restoration activities, with a specific view to working with local citizens to avoid conflict and obtain long-term investment. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of coastal restoration, wetland conservation and citizen science, as well as environmental sociology and environmental management more broadly. It will also be of use to practitioners and policymakers involved in environmental restoration projects.

This volume explores major wetland ecosystem services, such as climate cooling and water quality improvement, and discusses the recent wetland conservation and restoration activities in China and neighboring countries. The role of wetlands in either cooling or warming the climate is analyzed as the net balance between carbon sequestration and emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. Wetlands start off having a net warming effect on the climate but in time switch to net cooling. Further, they remove 40% of the N and P from run-off and groundwater flow in agricultural areas, but wetlands need to amount to 10% of the total catchment area to make a difference. Reflecting on the recent large investment in wetland ecological studies in China and neighboring countries, the book addresses invasive species in coastal wetlands as well as the protection and wise use of tidal flats around the Yellow Sea. It also presents promising regional case studies on wetland restoration. The book is intended for academics, students and practitioners in the field of wetland ecology, management and restoration, as well as consultants and professionals working in conservation, wise use and environmental policy.

Praise for the previous editions of Wetlands: "Wetlands, the field of study, would not be what it is without Wetlands, the book." ——Bill Streever, Wetlands, 2001 "The Third Edition of this highly successful book manages to set new standards in presentation and content to confirm its place as the first point of reference for those working or studying wetlands." ——Chris Bradley, University of Birmingham, UK, Regulated Rivers: Research and Management "This book is the wetlands bible...the most wide-ranging [book] on the subject." ——Carl Folke, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Land Use Policy "The single best combination text and reference book on wetland ecology." ——Joseph S. Larson, University of Massachusetts, Journal of Environmental Quality "First on my list of references to recommend to someone new to wetland policy management or science." ——Jay A. Leitch, North Dakota State University, Water Resources Bulletin For more than two decades, William Mitsch and James Gosselink's Wetlands has been the premier reference on wetlands for ecologists, land use planners, and water resource managers worldwide—a comprehensive compendium of the state of knowledge in wetland science, management, and restoration. Now Mitsch and Gosselink bring their classic book up to date with substantial new information and a streamlined text supplemented with a support web site. This new Fourth Edition maintains the authoritative quality of its predecessors while offering such revisions as: Refocused coverage on the three main parts of the book: 1. An introduction to the extent, definitions, and general features of wetlands of the world; 2. Wetland science; and 3. Wetland management. New chapter on climate change and wetlands that introduces the student to the roles that wetlands have in climate change and impact that climate change has on wetlands. Increased international coverage, including wetlands of Mexico and Central America, the Congolian Swamp and Sine Saloum Delta of Africa, the Western Siberian Lowlands, the Mesopotamian Marshland restoration in Iraq, and the wetland parks of Asia such as Xixi National Wetland Park in eastern China and Gandau Nature Park in Taipei, Taiwan. This expanded coverage is illustrated with over 50 wetland photographs from around the world. Several hundred new refer?ences for further reading, up-to-date data, and the latest research findings. Over 35 new info boxes and sidebars provide essential background information to concepts being presented and case studies of wetland restoration and treatment in practice.

Estuarine wetlands play important roles in providing various ecosystem services, such as providing habitat for living organisms, preventing seawater intrusion, conserving biodiversity, regulating microclimate, and promoting nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Estuaries are home to many mega-cities, such as New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo, accompanied by frequent human activities. These human-induced disturbances have rapidly altered the structure and function of estuarine ecosystems through land reclamation, pollution, overfishing, and altered flows. Moreover, estuarine wetlands have been greatly threatened by intensifying global climate changes, particularly more frequent tsunamis, sea-level rise, and large-scale biological invasions, which will not only affect primary and secondary productivity, community composition and distribution, and biodiversity, but also natural ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes, and will ultimately disrupt ecosystem services. To mitigate such negative impacts, a growing number of estuarine wetland restoration projects have been undertaken in recent years. These projects aim to re-establish a variety of ecological attributes, including community structure (species diversity and habitat) and ecological processes (energy flow and nutrient cycling), which implies increased resilience and resistance of estuarine ecosystems to abiotic and biotic stressors. However, ecological restoration practices are not always satisfactory in the face of uncertainties from intensifying global changes and socioeconomic variation. Ecologists, biologists, environmentalists have been working on finding more effective solutions to restore degraded estuarine wetland ecosystems on a global scale. The concepts of “nature-based solutions”, “adaptive management” or “ecological networks” seem to offer better prospects and are now being used to reframe estuarine restoration on critical uncertainties reduction, climate change adaptation, and mitigation strategies. As the world enters the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), countries and organizations around the world will pay greater attention to the innovation of ecological restoration underpinnings to ensure that estuarine restoration achieves its full potential in delivering social and ecological coordination and, ultimately, sustainable development. Therefore, it is important to discuss how anthropogenic disturbances and climate change affect estuarine wetlands and how the latest restoration framework can guide future practices towards conserving and restoring the biodiversity of estuarine wetlands.

Coastal Wetlands, Second Edition: An Integrated and Ecosystem Approach provides an understanding of the functioning of coastal ecosystems and the ecological services that they provide. As coastal wetlands are under a great deal of pressure from the dual forces of rising sea levels and the intervention of human populations, both along the estuary and in the river catchment, this book covers important issues, such as the destruction or degradation of wetlands from land reclamation and infrastructures, impacts from the discharge of pollutants, changes in river flows and sediment supplies, land clearing, and dam operations. - Covers climate change and its influence on coastal wetland form and function - Provides a fully updated and expanded resource, including new chapters on modeling, management and the impact of climate change - Contains full-color figures of wetlands and estuaries in different parts of the world

Creating and Restoring Wetlands: From Theory to Practice, Second Edition describes the challenges and opportunities relating to the restoration of freshwater and estuarine wetlands in natural, agricultural, and urban environments in the coming century. This second edition is structured by clearly defined chapters based on specific wetland types (e.g. Peatlands, Mangroves) and with a consistent and coherent organization for ease of discoverability. The table of contents is divided into four main subjects: Foundations, Restoration of Freshwater Wetlands, Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands, and From Theory to Practice, each with multiple chapters. Part 1, Foundations, contains chapters describing definitions of wetlands, ecological theory used to guide restoration, and considerations on where to implement restoration on the landscape. In Parts 2 and 3, restoration of specific freshwater (marshes, forests, peatlands) and estuarine (tidal marshes, mangroves) wetlands are described. Part 4, From Theory to Practice, contains chapters describing performance standards to gauge success of projects and case studies describing small-scale and large-scale restoration projects of various freshwater and estuarine wetlands. Each chapter contains clearly labeled sections which assist the reader to quickly and easily key in on the subject matter that they are seeking. The approach of Creating and Restoring Wetlands is unique in that, in each chapter, it links ecological theory important to ecosystem restoration with practical techniques to undertake and implement successful wetland restoration projects, including recommendations for performance standards to gauge success as well as realistic expectations and timescales for achieving success. Each chapter ends with a summary table describing keys to ensure success for a given wetland ecosystem. - Each chapter ends with a summary table describing keys to ensure success for a given wetland ecosystem - Written by a single author, providing a consistent structure that is coherent, cohesive and well referenced - Contains case studies of small- and large-scale restoration activities ensuring relevance to individuals and organizations

Wetlands Lost. The 1,879 thousand hectares of coastal wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) comprise 58% of the U.S. coastal wetland total (Turner and Gosselink 1975). These wetlands occur in every GOM state, although two-thirds of the GOM total are in Louisiana, and are typically associated with estuaries, bays, rivers, and the lee-side of barrier islands. The objective of this book is to facilitate and encourage the restoration of these and other wetlands by reviewing the details of construction and costs (which can range from $1 to $45,000 per hectare), and by evaluating case studies for levels of success. Each approach is presented in brief chapters outlining the essential points of "what, why, and how" the approach can be planned and implemented. The driving purpose, or goal, of this book is to accelerate regional wetland gains and to promote cost-effective practices in wetland restoration. Why do we think that this book is necessary? The area of wetlands has been diminishing almost everywhere for the last several hundred years, but particularly this century, as the twin juggernauts of population growth and per capita resource exploitation expanded. In 1927, as the Great Depression in the U.S. was about to start, there were 2 billion people on the planet. There were 6 billion people on the Earth in the year 2000 and by 2054 there will be 9 billion. Two hundred years ago there were 89.5 million ha of wetlands in the contiguous 48 U.S. states (Dahl 1990). By 1997 this area had shrunk to 42.7 million ha (Dahl 2001). From the 1970s to the mid-1980s, the annual wetland loss rate was 117,400 ha (Dahl and Johnson 1991). The official national policy of "no net loss" may be why the wetland loss rate slowed to 23.7 thousand ha yr-1 from 1986 to 1997 (Dahl 2001). Although wetland loss rates have also declined in coastal Louisiana in recent years, Louisiana experienced particularly high coastal wetland loss rates of 12.5 thousand ha yr-1 (0.86% yr-1) from 1956 to 1978 (Baumann and Turner 1990). Thus, wetland loss has become a national concern (National Research Council 1991; Dahl 2001, National Research Council 2001) and particularly in the northern Gulf of Mexico. We hope to contribute to the reversal of these wetland losses by presenting wetland restoration and creation approaches appropriate for the Northern Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps elsewhere. (taken from the introduction)