125 articles
Sesuvium
Sesuvium, sea purslane genus of Aizoaceae; succulent C3/C4/CAM herbs of tropical coasts; S. portulacastrum is an edible facultative halophyte used for sand fixation and saline-soil bioremediation.
Shoebill
Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex), also called whale-headed stork, a Vulnerable solitary African swamp bird, sole member of Balaenicipitidae, related to pelicans and hamerkop, hunting lungfish with a foot-long bill.
Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI): UK designation for land of special flora, fauna, or geological interest, notified by Natural England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; 4,127 English sites covering 1,088,000 hectares, with condition targets to 2042.
Society of Wetland Scientists
Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS), international professional society founded 1980 by Richard Macomber; 3,000+ members in 60+ countries; publishes Wetlands journal and Wetland Science & Practice; administers PWS certification.
Spartina patens
Spartina patens, saltmeadow cordgrass or marshhay cordgrass (syn. Sporobolus pumilus), a rhizomatous high-marsh grass from Newfoundland to Texas, tolerant of 0-35 ppt salinity, used for salt hay and restoration, invasive on the Pacific coast.
State, tribal and local wetland regulation in the United States
State, tribal, and local wetland regulation in the United States is the state, tribal, and local laws protecting wetlands outside federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
Strand swamp
Strand swamp (also cypress strand) is a Florida natural community: a shallow, elongated, forested wetland channel dominated by bald cypress, with 200-300 day hydroperiod, peat-over-limestone soils, and rare fire, best exemplified by the Fakahatchee Strand.
Suaeda
Suaeda (seepweed, seablite) is a genus of about 94 accepted halophytic herbs and shrubs in Amaranthaceae, subfamily Suaedoideae, published in 1776. It grows in coastal and desert saline soils worldwide, tolerates 200 mM NaCl or more, and is used for food, oil, and saline-land restoration.
Sumatran peat swamp forests
Sumatran peat swamp forests are ombrogenous tropical rainforests on peat soils, originally about 7 million ha, rich in carbon and endemic wildlife, now heavily logged, drained, burned, and converted to oil palm and pulp plantations.
Swale (landform)
Swale (landform): a shallow open depression lacking a defined channel; also called slack. Covers coastal dune swales between beach ridges, prairie swales, and designed vegetated stormwater channels, from Old Norse svalr.
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland dominated by woody trees or shrubs, distinguished from marshes by vegetation; major types are forested and shrub swamps, including mangrove swamps, with flood-protection and nutrient-removal functions.
Swamps and tall-herb fens in the British National Vegetation Classification system
Swamps and tall-herb fens are NVC vegetation types S1–S28, also called British Plant Communities Volume 4 wetland communities, covering reed-beds, sedge swamps and tall-herb fens used in SSSI and Annex I habitat assessment.
The Senator (tree)
The Senator was a giant bald cypress (Big Tree) in Longwood, Florida, estimated 2,500-3,500 years old and the largest tree east of the Mississippi until it burned on January 16, 2012.
Tidal creek
Tidal creek, also called tidal channel or mangrove creek: a small channel network in coastal wetlands, tidal along its entire length, draining watersheds under 50 km2 into estuaries. Known for dendritic tapering channels, nursery habitat for fisheries, and remote-sensing extraction methods.
Tidal freshwater marsh
A tidal freshwater marsh is a herbaceous wetland in the upper estuary or tidal river, where ocean tides move the water twice daily but river discharge keeps it fresh.
Tidal marsh
Tidal marsh (salt marsh): vegetated intertidal coastal wetland, a blue carbon ecosystem burying carbon about 40 times faster than forests. Distinguished from mangroves and seagrass; US tidal marshes lost 1,567 km2 over four decades, driven by sea level rise and extreme weather.
Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests
Tonle Sap freshwater swamp forests: seasonally flooded forest and shrubland ecoregion around Tonle Sap lake, Cambodia, inundated 6–8 months yearly by the Mekong flood pulse; fish nursery habitat, heavily cleared, with Prek Toal the best remaining stand.
Tonle Sap–Mekong peat swamp forests
Tonle Sap–Mekong peat swamp forests: a Cambodian freshwater swamp-forest ecoregion of permanently shallow-inundated land around Tonle Sap, marked by flood-pulse adaptation, severe fire and rice-conversion losses, and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protection.
Tourbiere
Tourbiere (French tourbière) means peatland: a waterlogged wetland where undecayed plants form peat. Bogs are rain-fed, fens groundwater-fed; peatlands cover 3% of land yet store 20% of soil carbon.
Typha
Typha (cattail) is a cosmopolitan wetland plant genus of rhizomatous perennials with brown flower spikes. Key species include T. latifolia, T. angustifolia, and the invasive hybrid T. × glauca.
Typha latifolia
Typha latifolia, broadleaf or common cattail, is a cosmopolitan emergent wetland plant of Typhaceae with male and female flower spikes touching; it hybridizes with T. angustifolia to form invasive T. × glauca and is used in wastewater treatment.
Várzea forest
Várzea forest, Amazonian whitewater floodplain forest (contrasted with igapó), flooded by nutrient-rich Andean sediment rivers; covers 60,000–100,000 km², floods up to 230 days yearly, hosts about one sixth of Amazonian tree diversity.
Vossia cuspidata
Vossia cuspidata, hippo grass, sole species of genus Vossia, a C4 perennial emergent aquatic Poaceae grass native to Africa and Assam to Indo-China, floating spongy culms to 7 m, IUCN Least Concern, invasive in Egypt's Nile.
Walking catfish
Walking catfish (Clarias batrachus), also called magur, is a Southeast Asian air-breathing catfish that moves overland using pectoral fins. Established in Florida since the 1960s, listed as injurious wildlife under the Lacey Act since 1970.
Western Congolian swamp forests
Western Congolian swamp forests (Forêts marécageuses de l'ouest du Congo): tropical freshwater swamp forest ecoregion on the right bank of the Congo River in ROC, DRC, and CAR, part of the world's largest swamp forest complex with Raphia palm stands and carbon-rich peat.
Wetland
Wetlands are water-saturated lands with hydrophytic vegetation and hydric soils, from marshes and bogs to mangroves. Defined by Ramsar (1971) and the EPA; 22% lost since 1970; largest biological methane source.
Wetland classification
Wetland classification systems group wetlands by hydrology, geomorphology, vegetation, and soils. Key frameworks: the U.S. Cowardin system (five systems, 56 classes), the Ramsar 42-type typology, and Brinson's HGM functional classification.
Wetland conservation in the United States
Wetland conservation in the United States covers Clean Water Act Section 404 regulation, mitigation banking, no-net-loss policy, and restoration programs protecting about 110 million acres of wetlands, reshaped by the 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision.
Wetland delineation
Wetland delineation is the field procedure of drawing the boundary between wetland and non-wetland areas on a parcel of land, usually for Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting.
Wetland flora of the British Isles
Wetland flora of the British Isles is the plant vegetation of fen, bog, marsh, swamp, and salt-marsh habitats, described as assemblages under the National Vegetation Classification.