Our famous jagged coastline and generally rugged terrain statewide have provided Maine with an abundance and diversity of wetlands unequalled in the Northeastern United States. Fully 25 percent of Maine's land area is wetlands, four times the wetland area of the other five New England States combined. Wetlands are valuable not only for their beauty and the recreation opportunities they support, but also for critically important functions they perform in our environment. Wetlands are important to natural systems including water storage, flood conveyance, groundwater recharge and discharge, shoreline erosion control and water quality improvement.
Wetlands are the source of timber resources highly valuable to Maine's forest products industry.
Perhaps most important, wetlands provide habitat vital to fish and wildlife, including many rare and endangered species. Because of the capacity of their water retention associated with their abundant vegetation, wetlands serve as natural water storage areas. Nontidal wetlands receive their water mainly from surface water runoff, groundwater discharge and direct precipitation. Surface water runoff collects in isolated depressions surrounded by high ground, or overflows from rivers and lakes following snowmelt or periods of heavy rainfall. In other areas where the groundwater is close to the surface, water may pond on the surface when there is a period of sustained rainfall.