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Hydrology of Mid-Atlantic Freshwater Wetlands
Citation:
Hychka, K., R. Brooks, AND C. Cole. Hydrology of Mid-Atlantic Freshwater Wetlands. Chapter 4, Mid-Atlantic Freshwater Wetlands: Advances in Wetlands Science, Management, Policy, and Practice. Springer, New York, NY, , 109-127, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
Wetland hydrology is important driver in the functioning and provision of services from freshwater wetlands, but understanding the hydrologic behaviors across wetland types and disturbance levels is limited. This study provides a synopsis of work done on wetland hydrology of freshwater wetlands in the Mid-Atlantic over a 20 year period by the Riparia lab at Penn State University. It provides additional analysis of some of the long term hydrologic monitoring data particularly in terms of intra- and inter-annual variation in hydrologic behavior by wetland type and disturbance level. This synthesis should be valuable to wetland managers and mitigation designers in setting hydrologic behavior targets and developing hydrologic monitoring strategies.
Description:
Hydrology is a key variable in the structure and function of a wetland; it is a primary determinant of wetland type, and it drives many of the functions a wetland performs and in turn the services it provides. However, wetland hydrology has been understudied. Efforts by Riparia scientists have advanced the understanding of wetland hydrology in the Mid-Atlantic Region over the past two decades primarily through a series of studies at a set of long-term monitoring sites. This work contributed to four primary issues in wetland hydrology: validation of regional hydrogeomorphic classification schemes, establishment of reference criteria for monitoring and assessment, identification of targets for restoration or mitigation, and evaluation of the hydrologic behavior of created versus non-created wetlands. This chapter (1) summarizes some of the key findings of hydrologic studies of wetlands from the published and non-published research of wetland scientists associated with Riparia and secondarily, (2) describes general, seasonal, and inter-annual hydrologic patterns of the water level data that has been collected at some of the long-term monitoring sites or ‘reference sites’.
