Surface flow (SF) treatment wetlands as a habitat for wildlife and humans

Abstract

Water quality improvement is generally the primary objective of treatment wetlands. Creation of wildlife habitat is an inevitable outcome of these projects. However, an increasing number of treatment wetland projects have been purposely designed and operated to enhance their beneficial utility to wildlife and humans. This trend to multi-purpose treatment wetlands has broadened the basis for assessing the advantages of this natural treatment alternative. There are at least 21 treatment wetlands in the U.S. that were implemented with wildlife habitat creation and/or human use as principal goals. A number of treatment wetlands outside the U.S. also share these priorities. Hundreds of other wetlands have collected and reported quantitative data on wildlife and/or human uses. The North American Treatment Wetland Database (NADB) has been expanded to include critical wildlife habitat and human use data. This paper provides a preliminary inventory of these habitat and human use treatment wetlands, summarizes lessons learned, and identifies additional data needs.