414 articles
Little Waterhouse Lake
Little Waterhouse Lake is a 56-hectare Ramsar wetland site (Site No. 260, listed 16 November 1982) in northeast Tasmania: a brackish coastal freshwater lagoon between dunes, home to dwarf galaxias, green and gold frog, and rare clubsedges.
Livingstone Falls
Livingstone Falls (Chutes de Livingstone) is a roughly 350-km chain of rapids and cataracts on the lower Congo River below Malebo Pool, DRC, named by Henry Morton Stanley for David Livingstone after his 1877 descent; the Inga rapids within it anchor a hydropower potential above 40 GW.
Logan Lagoon
Logan Lagoon (Ramsar site no. 252) is a 2,257-hectare coastal estuarine wetland on Flinders Island, Tasmania, listed 16 November 1982; a migratory shorebird refuge meeting Ramsar criteria 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.
Long Lake (Indiana)
Long Lake (Indiana Dunes, near Gary, Indiana): East and West Long Lake, large shallow interdunal lakes in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, formed from glacial Lake Chicago remnants; seeps into groundwater; distinct from Long Lakes in Noble and Steuben Counties.
Lourdes water
Lourdes water is the spring water from the Grotto of Massabielle, uncovered by Bernadette Soubirous on 25 February 1858; pilgrims drink and wash with it free of charge, and analyses find no special properties.
Luangwa Flood Plains
Luangwa Flood Plains: 250,000 ha Ramsar site (no. 1660, designated 2 February 2007) in Eastern Province, Zambia, along the unregulated Luangwa River; spans South Luangwa, North Luangwa, and Luambe national parks and three game management areas, with over 50 mammal and 400 bird species.
Lythrum salicaria
Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) is a Eurasian wetland perennial, invasive in North America since the early 1800s, tristylous, producing up to 2.5 million seeds per plant and forming dense stands; its ecological impacts are debated.
Macquarie Marshes
Macquarie Marshes: ~200,000 ha intermittently flooded wetland complex on the lower Macquarie River, NSW, Australia; Ramsar-listed (19,850 ha, 1986/2000/2012); degraded by river regulation since Burrendong Dam (1967).
Mai Po Marshes (米埔湿地)
Mai Po Marshes (米埔湿地) are a 380-hectare wetland nature reserve at Inner Deep Bay, Hong Kong, managed by WWF since 1983, Ramsar-listed in 1995, famed for gei wai shrimp ponds, mangroves, and wintering waterbirds including the black-faced spoonbill.
Mangrove
Mangroves are about 80 species of salt-tolerant trees and shrubs of the tropical and subtropical intertidal zone, forming forests that store over 6.23 gigatonnes of carbon, protect coastlines, and support fisheries; global extent was 147,283.64 km² in 2025.
Mangrove swamp
Mangrove swamp: a tropical and subtropical intertidal coastal wetland dominated by salt-tolerant mangrove trees, about 80 species, 14.8 million hectares globally, defined by tidal flooding, salt adaptations, blue carbon storage, and coastal protection.
Manikaran
Manikaran: pilgrimage village in Parvati Valley, Kullu district, Himachal Pradesh, India, famed for hot springs up to 97 °C, Gurudwara Manikaran Sahib where langar cooks in spring water, and a 5 kW pilot geothermal plant.
Manoa Falls Trail
Mānoa Falls Trail is a 1.6-mile easy rainforest hike in Honolulu Watershed Forest Reserve, Oʻahu, ending at a 150-foot waterfall; managed by Nā Ala Hele, free entry, $7 Paradise Park parking, no swimming, reopened 2021 after refurbishment.
Marais poitevin
Marais poitevin is a man-made wetland in western France, reclaimed from the former Gulf of Pictons; at about 100,000 hectares it is France's second largest wetland.
Marismas Nacionales
Marismas Nacionales: Mexican Pacific wetland complex in Sinaloa and Nayarit; Ramsar site 732 (1995, 200,000 ha) and Nayarit Biosphere Reserve (2010); seven rivers, vast mangroves, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Marsh
Marsh: a wetland frequently or continually inundated with water, dominated by emergent soft-stemmed vegetation such as cattails and cordgrass; distinct from swamps (woody), bogs (acidic peat), and fens (groundwater-fed), with neutral pH, high nutrients, and flood- and storm-buffering functions.
Marsh Island
Marsh Island, Louisiana: a ~71,000-acre brackish marsh island in Iberia Parish between Vermilion Bay and the Gulf, donated by Margaret Sage in 1920 and managed by LDWF as a wildlife refuge.
Martimoaapa - Lumiaapa - Penikat Mires
Martimoaapa-Lumiaapa-Penikat Mires, also called Martimoaapa mire reserve, is a 14,086 ha Ramsar site no. 11 and Natura 2000 SAC/SPA in Simo and Keminmaa, Sea Lapland, Finland, designated in 1974, established as a mire reserve in 1981, with nearly 100 nesting bird species.
McWay Falls
McWay Falls, also called McWay Creek Falls, is an 80-foot waterfall in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park on the Big Sur coast that drops onto a beach in McWay Cove.
Measurement and disputed heights of waterfalls
Waterfall heights are measured by conventions such as total drop or tallest single drop, and survey quality explains why references disagree by hundreds of meters.
Medicine Lake Wetland Management District
Medicine Lake Wetland Management District, officially the Northeast Montana Wetland Management District, is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service unit protecting waterfowl habitat in northeastern Montana.
Melaleuca quinquenervia
Melaleuca quinquenervia (broad-leaved paperbark, punk tree, niaouli) is an Australian Myrtaceae tree yielding niaouli essential oil, and a notorious Everglades invader introduced to Florida from 1886, now controlled by Oxyops vitiosa and Boreioglycaspis melaleucae.
Mesopotamian Marshes (أهوار العراق)
The Mesopotamian Marshes (أهوار العراق), also called the Iraqi Marshlands or Ahwar, are a large wetland system in southern Iraq where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet, the largest freshwater wetland in the Middle East.
Minerotrophic
Minerotrophic describes peatlands, especially fens, whose water and nutrients come partly from mineral soil or bedrock, unlike ombrotrophic bogs, which are fed only by precipitation.
Mitigation banking
Mitigation banking, also called wetland mitigation banking, restores or creates wetlands in advance so credits can be sold to offset permitted impacts under the Clean Water Act.
Mondorf les bains
Mondorf-les-Bains (Munnerëf) is a Luxembourg spa town on the French border. Its thermal spring was found in 1841, the first bath opened 20 June 1847, and it hosts US Mondorf football club and the Stade John Grün.
Montmorency Falls
Montmorency Falls (chute Montmorency) is an 83 m waterfall on the Montmorency River into the St. Lawrence, 12 km from Quebec City; Quebec's highest fall, 30 m taller than Niagara, site of the 1759 Battle of Montmorency.
Muddus National Park
Muddus National Park (Sámi: Muttos), Norrbotten, Sweden: 49,340-ha national park founded 1942, Sweden's largest forest national park, with 700-year-old pines, the 42 m Muddus Waterfall, and Laponia World Heritage membership since 1996.
Mudskipper
Mudskippers are amphibious gobies (Oxudercidae, Oxudercinae), about 34-45 species of Indo-West Pacific and West African mudflat fish that breathe air through skin, walk on pectoral fins, and brood eggs in air-filled burrows.
Muir-Byenup System
Muir-Byenup System, Ramsar site 1050 in south-west Western Australia near Manjimup: a 10,631-hectare complex of lakes and peat swamps, listed 2001, important for waterbirds, endemic fish and threatened orchids.