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Coastal Watershed Forested Wetland Change and Opportunities for Enhanced Collaboration with the Forestry Community

  • Silviculture in Forested Wetlands
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Abstract

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) Wetlands Status and Trends reports have documented greater net wetland loss rates in U.S. coastal watersheds than in the rest of the contiguous U.S., and this loss rate has increased through time. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastal watersheds contain 30% of the country’s forested wetlands. Although forested wetlands in this region have a long history of supplying substantial benefits to society, a portion of these habitats are currently being transformed into different land cover types – including both uplands and other types of wetlands. Drivers of forested wetland change in this region are complex, but some loss of area appears to be associated with plantation forestry. Improved understanding of this relationship is necessary to better support informed management of this critical resource. This will require close collaboration between the wetland and forestry communities. Unfortunately, communication between these two communities has been hampered by misconceptions about how wetland and forestry data are collected, and differences in the way key terms are defined. This article summarizes recent Wetlands Status and Trends data, seeks to clarify definitions and current misconceptions involving this dataset, and describes opportunities for future collaboration between the forestry and wetland communities.

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Notes

  1. By comparing the acres of forested wetlands that changed to scrub-shrub, often an indication of harvest, to the acres that changed to upland forested plantations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Bill Wilen, Jonathan Phinney and Mitch Bergeson for reviewing an earlier version of this article. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory, Falls Church, VA, 22041, USA

    Megan Lang

  2. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Silver Spring, MD, 20910, USA

    Susan-Marie Stedman

  3. Weyerhaeuser, Columbus, MS, 39701, USA

    Jami Nettles

  4. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory, Madison, WI, 53711, USA

    Rusty Griffin

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  1. Megan Lang
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  2. Susan-Marie Stedman
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  4. Rusty Griffin
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Correspondence to Megan Lang.

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Lang, M., Stedman, SM., Nettles, J. et al. Coastal Watershed Forested Wetland Change and Opportunities for Enhanced Collaboration with the Forestry Community. Wetlands 40, 7–19 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-019-01243-x

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