9460

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9460
• Author: Wentz, W. A.
• Title: Wetlands Values and Management.
• USFW Year: 1981.
• USFW - Doc Type: Washington, D.C.
• Copyright Material: NO

Freshwater Marshes

There are many kinds of freshwater
marshes. Freshwater marshes include
shoreline wetlands, small woodland
marshes, prairie potholes, springfed
pools, river oxbows, bogs, and even artifi-
cial or man-made marshes. The water
supply for such wetlands might be direct
rainfall, runoff from the surrounding area,
groundwater, surface springs, or streams.
Freshwater wetlands vary. greatly in size
from a few square yards to thousands of
acres. These wetlands are usually found
in some type of landscape depression or
at the edge of lakes or rivers. They have a
great variety of plants, but they are usually
dominated by herbaceous vegetation,
such as cattails, bulrushes, grasses and

sedges, smartweeds, waterlillies, and sub-
mersed pondweeds.
Even seemingly minor wetland areas
such as tiny wet meadows or small stands
of willows along a river are important.
These "riparian" wetland areas, although
very small in size, are valuable for filtering
the water that moves slowly through them
and because they provide habitat for
many types of wildlife, such as songbirds.
These small wetland areas add greatly to
the scenic quality of any river or stream.
Riparian wetlands are vulnerable to man-
induced changes in water flow and, unfor-
tunately, even slight modifications of the
natural stream banks can easily destroy
them.

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