Since the 1780s, the contiguous United States has
lost more than 50 percent of its wetlands,
Wetlands provide food, protection from predators,
and other vital habitat factors for many of the nation's fish and wildlife
species, including endangered and threatened species. In addition, wetland
ecotypes have economic value associated with recreational, commercial, and
subsistence use of fish and wildlife resources and they remove pollutants
from overland flows before they reach our lakes, rivers and bays.
Over the years,
hundreds of thousands of miles of river corridors and millions of acres
of wetlands have been damaged throughout the nation. Restoration seeks to
return some of these ecosystems to their approximate pre-disturbance conditions.
From 1982 to 1992, a total of 768,700 acres of wetlands were gained as a
result of restoration activities around the nation (USDA, 1997). Likewise,
numerous miles of rivers and streams were restored in our
nations watersheds over the same time period. When properly planned,
executed and managed, restoration works; its success can be attributed to
the hard work and dedication of practitioners, scientists, and others who
seek to heal damaged natural systems and improve our communities.
Restoration - the return of a degraded ecosystem to
a close approximation of its remaining natural potential - is experiencing
a groundswell of support across the United States. The number of stream,
river, lake, wetland and estuary restoration projects grows yearly. Current
Federal initiatives call for a wide range of restoration actions, including
improving or restoring 25,000 miles of stream corridor; achieving a net increase
of 100,000 acres of wetlands each year; and establishing two million miles
of conservation buffers.
http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/restore/benefits.html
Most of Ohio's wetlands were drained and filled to make way for farms, roadways,
houses and other development. Mining, fluctuating water levels and logging
also impacted Ohio's wetlands. In fact, nearly 90 percent of Ohio's original
wetlands have disappeared. From the 1780's to the 1980's, Ohio wetland areas
declined from about 5,000,000 acres to about 483,000 acres. Ohio's original
wetlands were very large. Examples include:
* The Great
Black Swamp, which was once 120 miles in length and an average of 40 miles
in width (about the size of Connecticut).
* The Scioto
and Hog Creek marshes of Hardin County, which once covered 25,000 acres
or 39 square miles.
Today, the scale is much different - large
wetlands would actually be very small in comparison to original
wetlands. For example, only 5 percent of the original Great Black Swamp remains.
With the notable exceptions of a few large tracts of marsh and swamp in
Ottawa, Sandusky, Lucas, Ashtabula, Geauga and Trumbell
Counties, most of Ohio's remaining wetlands are scattered wooded tracts.
These wooded tracts, along with restorable wetlands, are privately owned,
while the large blocks of wetlands remaining are publically
owned.
"Before 1780, about 183,000 acres (0.5% of Ohio's
total area) were covered by peatlands (
Dachnoqski, 1912).In 1912
Dachnowski conducted a comprehensive, county-by-county
survey of glaciated parts of Ohio and located 206 peatlands
that had a combined area of about 150,000.
Andreas and Knoop (1992) field inventoried
the flora of 125 peatlands and estimated that
between 1900 and 1921, 76,500 of 79,500 acres of peatland
were destroyed, and only 2 % of these wetlands today contain plant communities
associated with peatlands"
--Taken from Ohio Wetland Resources, National Water
Summary, USGS Water-Supply Paper 2425.
From 1970 to 1990, more than 30,000 square miles (19 million acres) of once-rural
lands in the United States became urban, as classified by the U.S. Census
Bureau. That amount of land equals about one third of Oregon's total land
area.
http://www.uoregon.edu/~pppm/landuse/sprawl.html
In the Atlanta area, for instance--cited in a recent study by urban planners
at Detroit's Wayne State University as the most grievously sprawled region
in the country--many suburban commuters now spend more than three hours in
traffic each weekday. Once home, they can't stop, except to switch hats,
becoming family taxi drivers--fetching children and running errands. As Dan
Burden often reminds people, the average American family, in Atlanta and
nationally, makes 14 car trips a day. More and more time in the car, which
at first seemed a small price to pay for pleasant suburban homes, becomes
almost intolerable when it occupies up to 30 hours and requires some 90
drives each week. People are no longer driving, they're driven. More open
space--25,000 square miles--got converted to urban uses between 1993 and
1997 than in the entire decade of the 1980s.
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200111/sprawl_printable.asp
Wetland destruction and degradation has plagued the United States for decades.
The wetland resource base in the 1980s was only 47% of what was present
in the 1780s (Dahl 1990), with a total loss of 47.3 million hectares (ha).
Recognizing the significant values wetlands possess, federal, state, and
local agencies have embraced the concept of "no net loss" (National Wetland
Policy Forum 1988), which seeks to replace lost wetland habitat with new
habitat created through mitigation. This policy has helped maintain the
numerous benefits of wetlands and their surrounding ecosystems while accommodating
the need for human development.
http://www.nrac.wvu.edu/rm493-591/fall2001/students/balcombe/GIS%20final%20project.htm