A second chance to protect wetlands

Study highlights regions with high wetland loss over past 300 years.

Wetlands are among the most threatened ecosystems in the world. A new study, published in Nature, has found that the loss of wetland areas around the globe since 1700 has likely been overestimated. This is good news overall, however, the global picture hides significant variations, with several regions and distinct wetland types under significant levels of pressure.

For instance, temperate river floodplains have been highly impacted while remote boreal-arctic peatlands remain comparatively unharmed. While wetland conversion and degradation has slowed globally, it continues apace in some regions, such as Indonesia, where large swaths of land are being cleared for oil palm plantations and other agricultural uses. This new global perspective on wetland loss can help prioritize conservation and restoration actions.

Historical reconstruction provides new insights

Now understood to be vital sources of water purification, groundwater recharge, and carbon storage, wetlands were historically seen as unproductive areas teeming with disease-bearing insects and good only for draining to grow crops or harvest peat for fuel or fertilizer. Over time, unrelenting drainage for conversion to farmland and urban areas along with alteration caused by fires and groundwater extraction have made wetlands among the world’s most threatened ecosystems.

Until now, a lack of historical data has hindered efforts to understand the full global impact of wetland loss, forcing scientists to make estimates based on incomplete collections of regional data. In a first of its kind historical reconstruction, the team, bringing together researchers from Stanford, Cornell, and McGill universities, combed through thousands of records of wetland drainage and land-use changes in 154 countries, mapping the distribution of drained and converted wetlands onto maps of present-day wetlands to get a picture of what the original wetland areas might have looked like in 1700.

Decline in wetlands – less than previously thought

The researchers found that the area of wetland ecosystems has declined by between 21-35% since 1700 due to human intervention. That’s far less than the 50-87% losses estimated by some previous studies. The lower estimate likely results from the study’s expanded focus beyond regions with historically high wetland losses, and its avoidance of large and possibly misleading extrapolations. Still, the authors estimate that at least 3.4 million square kilometres of wetlands have been lost globally over the past 300 years—an area about the size of India. Five countries with the highest losses, USA, China, India, Russia, and Indonesia, alone account for over 40% of global losses.

“Many regions of the world have sustained dramatically high wetland losses, but our results suggest that losses are lower than previously thought once aggregated globally. Yet, it remains urgent to halt and reverse the conversion and degradation of wetlands, particularly in high-loss regions. The geographic disparities in losses are critical because the disappearance of ecosystem services caused by wetland drainage in one location cannot be replaced by the existence of wetlands elsewhere,” said lead author Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, a postdoctoral associate in Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science at the time of the research, who conceived of this study during his master’s degree in McGill’s Department of Geography.

Another chance to act on wetland loss

“Wetlands, in their natural state, are among the most important ecosystems to regulate our water resources, which benefits both humans and the environment,” adds coauthor Bernhard Lehner, a global hydrologist at McGill University. “Discovering that fewer wetlands have been historically lost than we previously thought gives us a second chance to take action to ensure wetland cover does not decline further. As part of that, we need to improve our capacity to map their past and current extents and monitor their status using satellites. This will allow us to establish meaningful conservation goals and restoration targets.

About McGill University

Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada’s top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. It is a world-renowned institution of higher learning with research activities spanning two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,200 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,800 international students making up 31% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 19% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.

More from the McGill Newsroom

Journal: Nature
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05572-6
Article Title: Extensive global wetland loss over the past three centuries
Article Publication Date: 8-Feb-2023

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