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The only requirements for this find are to enjoy yourself, post a picture on the site of you and or your GPS and answer these questions:
1. At the entrance of the access platform there is a tree that has fallen because it's root system could not support its weight any longer in the saturated soil. Estimate the diameter of the exposed roots.
2. Estimate the volume of water surrounding the access platform. This is the holding capacity of the backwater.
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This is my first attempt at an Earthcache. Because this subject is very important to me. Development in the area has eliminated much of the wetlands that used to be around Geist Reservoir.
During times of flooding this cache will not be available.
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with moisture either permanently or seasonally. Such areas may also be covered partially or completely by shallow pools of water. Wetlands include swamps, marshes, and bogs, among others. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater, or brackish. The world's largest wetland is the Pantanal which straddles Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay in South America.
Wetlands are considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems. Plant life found in wetlands includes mangrove, water lilies, cattails, sedges, tamarack, black spruce, cypress, gum, and many others. Animal life includes many different amphibians, reptiles, birds, and furbearers.
In many locations, such as the United Kingdom, Iraq, South Africa and the United States, wetlands are the subject of conservation efforts and Biodiversity Action Plans.
The study of wetlands has recently been termed paludology in some publications.
Wetlands have been categorized both as biomes and ecosystems. They are generally distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level and on the types of plants that thrive within them. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a water table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough season each year to support aquatic plants. Put simply, wetlands are lands made up of hydric soil.
Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. 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."
Due to their lack of potential financial benefits, wetlands have historically been the victim of large-scale draining efforts for real estate development, or flooding for use as recreational lakes. Wetlands provide a valuable flood control function, but building levees helps replace natural flood controls. Wetlands were very effective at filtering and cleaning water, so to help with the ever increasing challenge of decreasing water pollution (often from agricultural runoff from the farms that replaced the wetlands in the first place), millions of dollars have been invested on water purification plants and expensive remediation measures. The USA came to understand how biologically productive wetlands are, so the USA passed laws limiting wetlands destruction, and created requirements that if a wetland had to be drained, developers at least had to offset the loss by creating artificial wetlands. One example is the project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to control flooding and enhance development by taming the Everglades, a project which has now been reversed to restore much of the wetlands as a natural habitat for plant and animal life, as well as a method of flood control.
By 1993 half the world's wetlands had been drained. Since the 1970s, more focus has been put on preserving wetlands for their natural function — sometimes also at great expense.
Wetlands function as natural sponges that trap and slowly release surface water, rain, snowmelt, groundwater and flood waters. Trees, root mats, and other wetland vegetation also slow the speed of flood waters and distribute them more slowly over the floodplain. This combined water storage and braking action lowers flood heights and reduces erosion. Wetlands within and downstream of urban areas are particularly valuable, counteracting the greatly increased rate and volume of surface water runoff from pavement and buildings.
The holding capacity of wetlands helps control floods and prevents water-logging of crops. Preserving and restoring wetlands, together with other water retention, can often provide the level of flood control otherwise provided by expensive dredge operations and levees. The bottomland hardwood-riparian wetlands along the Mississippi River once stored at least 60 days of floodwater. Now they store only 12 days because most have been filled or drained.
More than one-third of the United States' threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands, and nearly half use wetlands at some point in their lives. Many other animals and plants depend on wetlands for survival.
Estuarine and marine fish and shellfish, various birds, and certain mammals must have coastal wetlands to survive. Most commercial and game fish breed and raise their young in coastal marshes and estuaries. Menhaden, flounder, sea trout, spot, croaker, and striped bass are among the more familiar fish that depend on coastal wetlands. Shrimp, oysters, clams, and blue and Dungeness crabs likewise need these wetlands for food, shelter, and breeding grounds.
For many animals and plants, such as wood ducks, muskrat, cattails, and swamp rose, inland wetlands are the only places they can live. Beaver may actually create their own wetlands. For others, such as striped bass, peregrine falcon, otter, black bear, raccoon, and deer, wetlands provide important food, water, or shelter. Many of the U.S. breeding bird populations—including ducks, geese, woodpeckers, hawks, wading birds, and many song-birds—feed, nest, and raise their young in wetlands. Migratory waterfowl use coastal and inland wetlands as resting, feeding, breeding, or nesting grounds for at least part of the year. Indeed, an international agreement to protect wetlands of international importance was developed because some species of migratory birds are completely dependent on certain wetlands and would become extinct if those wetlands were destroyed.
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