1. Introduction
Wetland ecosystem is one of the most productive ecosystems on this planet delivering massive goods and services to human society. However, due to poor awareness of their values and underestimation of their contribution, many wetlands have been converted to farmland or urban areas, or influenced by pollution due to agricultural and industrial activities. Consequentially wetland ecosystems have severely declined and degraded globally during the past decades. In order to restore and protect wetlands, hence ensure a sustainable supply of wetland goods and services, it is important to recognize their values. Vital to this is the development of valuation methods that explicitly link wetland values, the capital base of the ecosystem, to the design of policies (Pearce and Atkinson, 1993; Dasgupta and Mäler, 2000; Arrow et al, 2004; Maler et al, 2008; Dasgupta, 2010).
For a typical wetland ecosystem, its values can be accounted in terms of the populations of its species, fish harvested per day, the amount of carbon stored per year, or the annual number of recreational visits. These are generally categorised as values from wetland production, regulating or cultural services (MA, 2005). Proper and accurate estimation of these values enables comparative analysis of intervention practices and therefore contributes to the improvement of the design of policies (Barbier, 1993; Barbier et al., 1997; Turner et al, 2000). Quality is a critical factor in determining the values of wetlands. A healthy and functioning wetland may provide rich ecosystem services (Zedler and Kercher, 2005; Maltby, 2009).
The quantity of the wetland valuation practice has increased in relatively recent years. In the review by Heimlich et al. (1998), 33...
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...s. Since the values derived with a benefit transfer method are not strictly primary studies, we therefore deleted those items. Subsequently, the values that are not of a single service, but a total economic value (TEV) or marked as ‘various’, had to be moved from the list for consistence. Finally, 70 data items from 27 articles remain in the analysis.
The cross tables based on the data are given in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows the relationship between eco-services and wetland types in terms of the number of study cases, while Table 2 shows the relationship between the services and the methods used for their valuation. The most studied services are food and raw materials which happen mainly at wetlands unspecified by the authors or at floodplains; the most used valuation methods are the direct market pricing method, there are 41 data items out of the total 70.
Conservation banking was modeled after the U.S. wetland mitigation banking system and the two programs share many similarities. However, unlike the wetland mitigation system, conservation offsets do not have a stated ‘no net loss’ goal, but instead have a species recovery goal. Both conservation and wetlands mitigation banks are privately or publicly owned lands which are protected and managed for its ecological value. By doing this, the bank sponsor generates habitat or wetland or stream credits to sell to developers or transportation departments who need to offset their impacts and comply with the legal requirements for the permitting of development or roadway projects. Both types of banks offer benefits to both the landowner that owns the natural resource and the developer that needs to purchase the credits. The landowner can take portions of their property that may have been considered unusable and turn it into an asset. The developer can streamline their permitting process by purchasing credits instead of implementing a mitigation plan themselves.
Perhaps the most devastating disregard of the Fraser Valley’s biodiversity was the draining of Sumas Lake to create farmland, resulting in the loss of habitat and the extirpation of endemic species. As it was originally intended to be, the Fraser Valley was a “perhaps unparalleled ecosystem” (Rosenau, p. 55), with bountiful wetlands and remarkable biodiversity. The European settlers 150 years ago considered it to be “wasteland” (Thom, p. 172), certainly uninhabitable and a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so the most logical thing to do would be to drain the body of water once known as Sumas Lake...
Westfields, a medium sized wetland region, is located on the outskirts of Limerick city and within the floodplain of the River Shannon (CAAS (Environmental Services) Ltd., 1999). Wetland regions are broadly defined within the Ramsar Convention (1971, 1), as, “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt including areas of marine water, the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres.” Identified as some of the most diverse habitats on earth, wetlands are also under severe threat, with a “10% decrease in their area occurring worldwide between the years 1990 and 2006” (CORINE, 2006). Westfields is no exception. Known worldwide for the diverse flora and fauna, in particular avifauna, that are present, the area has seen a dramatic decrease in size from its traditional expansive domain to a present area of twenty-six hectares. Thus, this essay aims to examine in detail the biogeographic merits of these declining wetland regions in particular Westfields, record the current condition of this particular wetland, and explore potential ideas for future conservation.
... policy recommendations. The authors concluded that best perspective for implementing economic incentives is to prize the use of land and habitat conversion and give some helpful directions for the future researches.
The Everglades, classified as a wetland or a "transition zone" can support plant and animal life unlike any other place. Wetlands are an important resource for endangered species and "that more than one third of the United States' threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands." Says Elaine Mao, the author of Wetlands and Habitat Loss. People have started to notice the importance and the role of wetlands like the Everglades and how they are valuable and essential for ecosystems to live. Wetlands provide so many kinds of plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, and
Ducks Unlimited claims that, “In some carefully targeted instances, DU will employ the extension process to work with private landowners to provide both economic and ecological sustainability.” The people that have private wetlands, and don’t have the money to fix them, DU will go to their land and make their land duck-livable and suitable for hunting. *Not only is state land good for duck also private owner will have good and safe land for the ducks. “For over six decades, Ducks Unlimited (DU) has maintained a singleness of purpose that has guided the organization to become the leading waterfowl and wetlands conservation entity in North America. Dynamic and responsive leadership by staff and volunteers, working together, has assured that DU’s work evolved in response to the ever-changing pressures on waterfowl and the habitats upon which they depend throughout their annual cycle”(DU). This is what the people want to see and the people that helps reach DU’s goal even more. They’re not out in the private land just yet, but once they hit their goal they’re not just going to stop at state land. “Canada, a non-profit wetland conservation organization, will announce today that after 20 years of repeated attempts, it has purchased the Chemainus Estuary, located 12 kilometres north of Duncan”(Chemainus Estuary). This is a piece of land that DU was trying to
To begin with, ever since the beginning of settlement here in 1882 settlers have been thinking about draining the marshland. Ever Since 1905 settlers have been changing the land, they built railroads and dug canals, made storage facilities and altered the regulation of the water flow. A major impact has been made on this park and dramatic change of land. In passage 1 “Past and Present: The Florida Everglades” states, “ As a result, the quantity and diversity of the wetlands’ wildlife decreased and 50%
...n, the Louisiana wetlands are an extremely valuable asset to the State of Louisiana and the United States. The continual loss of Louisiana wetlands has the potential to have an immensely negative effect on the economy at a state and national level. Over 2 million people live in the Louisiana coastal parishes (Field et al., 1991). The majority of people living on the Louisiana coast make their living from things that are directly related to the wetlands. The Louisiana wetlands make up the largest wetland community in America and is being lost at a rate greater than the other wetland communities in the country. The suggested strategies that are being taken into consideration could be helpful but it seems that the State of Louisiana is not as concerned as it should be given the future consequences and much like climate change coastal erosion is not being taken serious.
This paper introduces the environmental concerns of the loss of coastal wetlands. The paper will discuss the significance of wetlands and the devastation that is occurring because of human activity. Wetlands are an essential element of our environment both ecological and societal; conservation will be essential for the preservation of these precious ecosystems.
Between 300 and 400 million people worldwide live in areas near wetlands and depend on them. Wetlands are mechanisms for treatment of wastewater are extremely efficient because they absorb chemicals and filter pollutants and sediments. Half the world's wetlands have disappeared due to urbanization and industrial development. The only way to achieve sustainable development and poverty reduction will be through better management of rivers and wetlands, and the land they drain and drain as well as through increased investment in them.
There are multiple reasons why the wetlands have continuously had a downfall. Two of the reasons are due to hydrologic alterations and urbanization along with many more reasons such as natural processes. Hydrologic alterations consist of: drainage, dredging, stream channelization, ditching, levees, and deposition of fill material, stream diversion, groundwater withdrawal, and impoundment (“Wetlands Loss and Degradation”). When these changes occur to wetlands, it also cause changes to the animals or plants living there as well as the soil that’s
The study area consisted of Latah and Benewoh in Idaho, USA. The research used a total of 105 sites to collect data; ranking the areas from lowest to highest elevation. The methods implemented in this research consisted of wetland sampling, mail survey and habitat modelling. The combined results allowed for better insight for the conservation of these species. The first section of the experiment consist...
Economic valuation is an important component of environmental policy, although it is difficult to affix a cost on the environment and ecosystem services, it is a measurement that is relevant to most in society humans. Therefore, economic tools may be useful in reinforcing the importance of maintaining biodiversity and preserving fragile ecosystems.
Fig. The volume and prices of fingerlings, as well as, fishnets for 10,000 sq.m. pond.
The united nation was carried out an extensive study of current condition and trends of ecosystem services with the help of 1,300 experts from around the world and prepared the The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) Report in 2005. This report classifies ecosystem services into four types. 1) Supporting services: It is a fundamental unit of ecosystem services which support other ecosystem services. The soil formation, photosynthesis, nutrient cycling and water cycling are the supporting service in ES. 2) Provisioning services: These include the goods or products obtained from ecosystem such as foods (crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture, and wild foods), Fibre (timber, cotton, silk, wood fuel, genetic resources, biochemical, natural ...