Question

What are wetlands and how are they being destroyed?
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Answer 1

your answer

A wetland is a place where the land is covered by water, either salt, fresh or somewhere in between. Marshes and ponds, the edge of a lake or ocean, the delta at the mouth of a river, low-lying areas that frequently flood—all of these are wetlands.

The destruction of wetlands is a concern because they are some of the most productive habitats on the planet. They often support high concentrations of animals—including mammals, birds, fish and invertebrates—and serve as nurseries for many of these species. Wetlands also support the cultivation of rice, a staple in the diet of half the world’s population. And they provide a range of ecosystem services that benefit humanity, including water filtration, storm protection, flood control and recreation.

Answer 2

wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded by water, either permanently or seasonally, where oxygen-free processes prevail.[1] The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants,[2][3] adapted to the unique hydric soil. Wetlands play a number of functions, including water purification, water storage, processing of carbon and other nutrients, stabilization of shorelines, and support of plants and animals.[4] Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Whether any individual wetland performs these functions, and the degree to which it performs them, depends on characteristics of that wetland and the lands and waters near it.[5] Methods for rapidly assessing these functions, wetland ecological health, and general wetland condition have been developed in many regions and have contributed to wetland conservation partly by raising public awareness of the functions and the ecosystem services some wetlands provide.[5][6]

Wetlands occur naturally on every continent.[7] The water in wetlands is either freshwater, brackish, or saltwater.[3] The main wetland types are swamp, marsh, bog, and fen; sub-types include mangrove forest, carr, pocosin, floodplains,[1] mire, vernal pool, sink, and many others.[8] Many peatlands are wetlands. Wetlands can be tidal (inundated by tides) or non-tidal.[9] The largest wetlands include the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain,[10] the Pantanal in South America,[11] and the Sundarbans in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta.[12]A baygall is another type of wetland found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the USA.[13][14] Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies.[18] Mitsch and Gosselink write that wetlands exist "...at the interface between truly terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic systems, making them inherently different from each other, yet highly dependent on both."[19]

In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions.