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

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.