dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

oh shit. there is going to be flood.

4-6% lost forever after the

Swamp is drained

…The Ramsar Convention has adopted a Ramsar Classification of Wetland Type which includes

42 types, grouped into three categories: Marine and Coastal Wetlands, Inland Wetlands,

and Human-made Wetlands.

Wetlands occur everywhere, from the tundra to the tropics. How much of the earth’s

surface is presently composed of wetlands is not known exactly. The UNEP-World

Conservation Monitoring Centre has suggested an estimate of about 570 million hectares

(5.7 million km2) – roughly 6% of the Earth’s land surface – of which 2% are lakes, 30%

bogs, 26% fens, 20% swamps, and 15% floodplains. Mitsch and Gosselink, in their standard

textbook Wetlands, 3d ed. (2000),suggest 4 to 6% of the Earth’s land surface. Mangroves

cover some 240,000 km2 of coastal area, and an estimated 600,000 km2 of coral reefs remain

worldwide. Nevertheless, a global review of wetland resources prepared for Ramsar

COP7 in 1999, while affirming that “it is not possible to provide an acceptable figure of

the areal extent of wetlands at a global scale”, indicated a ‘best’ minimum global estimate

at between 748 and 778 million hectares. The same report indicated that this “minimum”

could be increased to a total of between 999 and 4,462 million Five major wetland types are generally recognized:

•

marine (coastal wetlands including coastal lagoons, rocky shores, and coral reefs);

•

estuarine (including deltas, tidal marshes, and mangrove swamps);

•

lacustrine (wetlands associated with lakes);

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riverine (wetlands along rivers and streams); and

•

palustrine (meaning “marshy” - marshes, swamps and bogs).

In addition, there are human-made wetlands such as fish and shrimp ponds, farm ponds,

irrigated agricultural land, salt pans, reservoirs, gravel pits, sewage farms and canals. The

Ramsar Convention has adopted a Ramsar Classification of Wetland Type which includes