Regional and global concerns over wetlands and water quality

Background

This paper examines the ecological role of wetlands in agricultural cachements and examines the dymamics of nutrient loading in wetlands at a local and watershed scale.

Conclusions & Takeaways

The paper argues that floodplains and riparian wetlands used to mitigate intensive agricultural can reduce nutrients locally, but that high levels of nutrient loading can still result in green house gas emissions and lower species diversity in the cachment as nutrients can leach into the groundwater. They argue that a mix of measures is required including lower fertilizer levels, restoration of riparian and floodplain wetlands and careful selection of these sites to ensure effective hydrological location The authors also point out that this approach is expensive but critical as some wetlands have reached a point where nutrient loading is elevated to the point where wetlands cannot act as nutriend retentions systems but rather will release nutrients and become an N2O source.