Soil properties of three newly created wetlands

Since the early 1990s, as recommended by the National Wetlands Policy Forum, a policy of “no net loss” of wetlands was put into place within many government agencies, including the Department of the Interior, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Agriculture (Mitsch and Gosselink, 1993). The ramifications of this adapted policy are that wetlands can continue to be destroyed as long as mitigation sites are developed to offset these losses. And, although this policy represents a major step toward shortterm wetland conservation, there are still justifiable concerns for long-term wetland sustainability. One important concept that has not been addressed within the regulation policies is the issue of net loss of wetland functions. Since wetlands are by no means homogeneous, the replacement of a natural system by a constructed one will probably not replicate all of the functions that had been performed. Also, despite the plethora of wetland research that has taken place within the last two decades, wetland processes are still poorly understood, and this is especially true for created systems. Wetland scientists have commented that little short-term monitoring and even less long-term monitoring of restored and created sites has occurred making it difficult to determine the status of these systems and success rates of mitigation sites (Kusler and Kentula, 1989; Erwin, 1989; Lowry, 1989; Denny, 1994). The ability to create wetland systems that exist in perpetuity and perform functions for which they were intended is greatly dependent on understanding processes which occur particularly with regard to the interactions and dynamics between the hydrological components and the biotic and abiotic components. This knowledge would in turn make wetland management easier, more cost efficient, more productive, and less time consuming, and would result in higher success rates for mitigation sites. In 1992, wetlands were created at The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio in order to facilitate long-term studies on created freshwater emergent marsh and riparian wetland systems. Known as the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park (ORWRP), these wetlands have been the subject of numerous studies to date dealing with all aspects of wetland functions including hydrology, vegetation dynamics, biogeochemical processes, animal use, biotic and abiotic interactions and substrate characteristics. This particular study represents a portion of the 1998 research at the site dealing with the substrate characteristics after almost five years of flooding. The aims of this research were 1) to determine soil conditions throughout the wetlands, 2) to compare these data with data of previous years, and 3) to add 1998 data to the existing database. Studies have shown that the estimates on time required to form redoximorphic features within hydric soils can vary from less than one year to more than 100 years (McCullough, 1998). As well, results of other studies examining soil development in created wetlands showed definite differences between created and natural wetland soils. Soils within created sites were found to have much lower organic matter content and show far fewer mottling and gleying characteristics (Confer and Neiring, 1992; BishelMachung et al., 1996; Stauffer and Brooks, 1997).