Wetlands support plants that are adapted to living in water or in saturated soil. Such plants are called hydrophytes. Indeed, over the past two centuries Americans have repeatedly enacted laws and devised programs that were aimed at encouraging the development of these areas. As a result, more than 100 million acres of our nation's wetlands have been destroyed. In recent years, Americans have come to realize that wetlands are precious ecological resources.
Wetlands provide numerous important benefits to society which are summarized below.
In many respects, wetlands function much like sophisticated sewage treatment plants by removing nutrients and other pollutants prior to discharge to a waterway. This is done at virtually no cost to the taxpaying public via solar energy. Wetlands acts as buffers which trap sediments resulting from natural and man-induced erosion. Increased development along a watercourse can hinder a wetlands capability to trap these sediments. Wetlands absorb and store a significant amount of surface water runoff during storm periods.