New UW research shows the importance of small wetlands

Leah Gerber Observer Staff

NEW RESEARCH OUT OF THE University of Waterloo illuminates the importance of small, stand-alone wetlands. These are wetlands that are geographically isolated, meaning that they may sometimes be connected to a downstream waterbody, and oftentimes are not.

“The main point that we were trying to make is that a lot of times when you have these smaller upland wetlands that are not near a coastal area, we don’t always think that they are connected to downstream waters, and we sometimes think that they are not really that important, because they are a small puddle of water someplace and maybe they don’t even have water all throughout the year, they have water part of the year,” said Nandita Basu, a tier-one Canada Research Chair in Global Water Sustain- ability and Ecohydrology and a professor of water sustainability and ecohydrology at the University of Waterloo.

“I’m not saying that they’re never connected, I’m saying their connections are less apparent than the more riverine wetlands or coastal → WETLANDS 5