The final determination of whether an area is a wetland and whether the activity requires a permit must be made by the appropriate Corps District Office. Unless an area has been altered or is a rare natural situation, wetland indicators of all three characteristics must be present during some portion of the growing season for an area to be a wetland. Each characteristic is discussed below. However, there are some general situations in which an area has a strong probability of being a wetland. Most wetlands lack both standing water and waterlogged soils during at least part of the growing season.
Area has soils that are called peats or mucks.
Area is periodically flooded by tides, even if only by strong, wind-driven, or spring tides. Many wetlands can be readily identified by the general situation stated above. For the boundary of these areas and numerous other wetlands, however, it is unclear whether these situations occur. Wetland indicators of these characteristics, which may indicate that the area is a wetland, are described on the following pages. Nearly 5,000 plant types in the United States may occur in wetlands.