The Wetlands EarthCache
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This Earth Cache will take you into Bristol Tennessee's Steels Creek Park. Park Hours are from 9am to 9pm. At the listed Coordinates, you will find a Wetland area and observation deck. To get credit for this cache, you must send the requested information to the cache owner. For the Health of this wetland, please do not remove or add any plant or animal life. Parking to this site can be located either at the main park area or at Rooster Front Park.
Tasks to required to complete this Earth Cache:
1: (This is an optional task). Take a picture(s) of yourself or the area, from the observation deck of the WETLAND area of the park. This is the location of the listed Coordinates, and post with your log or e-mail them to the cache owner if you wish.
2: Email the answers to the following questions to the cache owner:
1: Based on hydrology, what type of wetland can this be categorized?
2: Judging from the terrain here, what benefits can this wetland most serve the area?
3: Is this wetland a naturally occuring one, or constructed by man?
"Always Practice Cache In Trash Out while out with this Earth Cache."
Wetlands
A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. Primarily, the factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation that is adapted to its unique soil conditions: Wetlands consist primarily of hydric soil, which supports aquatic plants. The water found in wetlands can be saltwater, freshwater, or brackish.
Main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs and fens. Sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, and varzea. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, and shoreline stability. Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life.
Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica. They can also be constructed artificially as a water management tool, which may play a role in the developing field of water-sensitive urban design. The largest wetlands in the world include the Amazon River basin and the West Siberian Plain.
A patch of land that develops pools of water after a rain storm would not be considered a "wetland," even though the land is wet. Wetlands have unique characteristics: 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 period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil and hydrophytes. Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies Ecology: The most important factor producing wetlands is flooding. The duration of flooding determines whether the resulting wetland has aquatic, marsh or swamp vegetation. Other important factors include fertility, natural disturbance, competition, herbivory, burial and salinity. When peat accumulates, bogs and swamps arise.
Wetlands vary widely due to local and regional differences in topography, hydrology, vegetation, and other factors, including human involvement. Wetlands can be divided into two main classes: tidal and non-tidal areas.
Wetland hydrology is associated with the spatial and temporal dispersion, flow, and physiochemical attributes of surface and ground water in its reservoirs. Based on hydrology, wetlands can be categorized as riverine (associated with streams), lacustrine (associated with lakes and reservoirs), and palustrine (isolated). Sources of hydrological flows into wetlands are predominately precipitation, surface water, and ground water. Water flows out of wetlands by evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and sub-surface water outflow. Hydrodynamics (the movement of water through and from a wetland) affects hydroperiods (temporal fluctuations in water levels) by controlling the water balance and water storage within a wetland. Landscape characteristics control wetland hydrology and hydrochemistry. The O2 and CO2 concentrations of water depend on temperature and atmospheric pressure. Hydrochemistry within wetlands is determined by the pH, salinity, nutrients, conductivity, soil composition, hardness, and the sources of water. Water chemistry of wetlands varies across landscapes and climatic regions. Wetlands are generally minerotrophic with the exception of bogs. Bogs receive their water from the atmosphere and therefore their water has low mineral ionic composition because ground water has a higher concentration of dissolved nutrients and minerals in comparison to precipitation.
Soil: Carbon is the major nutrient cycled within wetlands. Most nutrients, such as sulfur, phosphorus, carbon, and nitrogen are found within the soil of wetlands. Anaerobic and aerobic respiration in the soil influences the nutrient cycling of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and the solubility of phosphorus thus contributing to the chemical variations in its water. Wetlands with low pH and saline conductivity may reflect the presence of acid sulfates and wetlands with average salinity levels can be heavily influenced by calcium or magnesium. Biogeochemical processes in wetlands are determined by soils with low redox potential.
Major wetland types for flood control: floodplain Storage Reservoirs and Flood Protection. The wetland system of floodplains is formed from major rivers downstream from their headwaters. The floodplains of major rivers act as natural storage reservoirs, enabling excess water to spread out over a wide area, which reduces its depth and speed. Wetlands close to the headwaters of streams and rivers can slow down rainwater runoff and spring snowmelt so that it doesn’t run straight off the land into water courses. This can help prevent sudden, damaging floods downstream. Groundwater replenishment Major wetland type: marsh, swamp, & subterranean karst and cave hydrological systems. The surface water which is the water visibly seen in wetland systems only represents a portion of the overall water cycle which also includes atmospheric water and groundwater.
Wetland systems are directly linked to groundwater and a crucial regulator of both the quantity and quality of water found below the ground. Wetland systems that are made of permeable sediments like limestone or occur in areas with highly variable and fluctuating water tables especially have a role in groundwater replenishment or water recharge. Sediments that are porous allow water to filter down through the soil and overlying rock into aquifers which are the source of 95% of the world’s drinking water.
Wetlands can also act as recharge areas when the surrounding water table is low and as a discharge zone when it is too high. Karst (cave) systems are a unique example of this system and are a connection of underground rivers influenced by rain and other forms of precipitation. These wetland systems are capable of regulating changes in the water table on upwards of 130 metres (430 ft). Sediment Traps. Rainfall run-off is responsible for moving sediment through waterways. These sediments move towards larger and more sizable waterways through a natural process that moves water towards oceans. All types of sediments which may be composed of clay, sand, silt, and rock can be carried into wetland systems through this process. Reedbeds or forests located in wetlands act as physical barriers to slow waterflow and trap sediment.
Water purification is also an important job of wetlands. Many wetland systems possess biofilters, hydrophytes, and organisms that in addition to nutrient up-take abilities have the capacity to remove toxic substances that have come from pesticides, industrial discharges, and mining activities. The up-take occurs through most parts of the plant including the stems, roots, and leaves . Floating plants can absorb and filter heavy metals. Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth), Lemna (duckweed) and Azolla (water fern) store iron and copper commonly found in wastewater. Many fast-growing plants rooted in the soils of wetlands such as Typha (cattail) and Phragmites (reed) also aid in the role of heavy metal up-take. Animals such as the oyster can filter more than 200 liters (53 gallons) of water per day while grazing for food, removing nutrients, suspended sediments, and chemical contaminants in the process. Capacity. The ability of wetland systems to store nutrients and trap sediment is highly efficient and effective but each system has a threshold. An overabundance of nutrient input from fertilizer run-off, sewage effluent, or non-point pollution will cause eutrophication. Upstream erosion from deforestation can overwhelm wetlands making them shrink in size and see dramatic biodiversity loss through excessive sedimentation load. The capacity of wetland vegetation to store heavy metals is affected by waterflow, number of hectares (acres), climate, and type of plant.
Constructed wetlands
The function of most natural wetland systems is not to manage wastewater, however, their high potential for the filtering and the treatment of pollutants has been recognized by environmental engineers that specialize in the area of wastewater treatment. These constructed artificial wetland systems are highly controlled environments that intend to mimic the occurrences of soil, flora, and microorganisms in natural wetlands to aid in treating wastewater effluent. Artificial wetlands provide the ability to experiment with flow regimes, micro-biotic composition, and flora in order to produce the most efficient treatment process. Other advantages are the control of retention times and hydraulic channels.The most important factors of constructed wetlands are the water flow processes combined with plant growth. Constructed wetland systems can be surface flow systems with only free-floating macrophytes, floating-leaved macrophytes, or submerged macrophytes; however, typical free water surface systems are usually constructed with emergent macrophytes. Constructed wetlands can be adapted to treat raw sewage, secondary domestic sludge, enhance water quality of oxidation ponds’ discharge, storm waters, mining waste, and industrial and agricultural waste effluents.
Conservation
Wetlands have historically been the victim of large draining efforts for real estate development, or flooding for use as recreational lakes. Since the 1970s, more focus has been put on preserving wetlands for their natural function yet by 1993 half the world's wetlands had been drained. Wetlands provide a valuable flood control function. Wetlands are very effective at filtering and cleaning water pollution, (often from agricultural runoff from the farms that replaced the wetlands in the first place). To replace these wetland ecosystem services, enormous amounts of money had to be spent on water purification plants, along with the remediation measures for controlling floods: dam and levee construction.
Acre for acre, wetlands are the most productive non-tropical ecosystem. The 1/2 acre wetland at Steele Creek Park will provide habitat for plants and animals not common to this area as well as provide many other geological jobs to its location.
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