GGR227H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Forest Ecology, Carbon Sink, Ecosystem Services
Document Summary
Wetlands can act as a natural filtration system: cleans out our drinking water, help remove sediments, pollutants. By their ability to act as water storages they help in floods. Play a huge role in slowing co2 concentrations in atmosphere. Natural resources grown in wetlands peat, rice, cranberries. Some threats to wetlands are: urbanization, draining for agriculutre, mining, flooding for hydro, pollution, climate change. Draining wetlands to mine peat: its an act of transforming ecosystem conditions in wetlands, taking away unique plants which are key in wetland areas ability to filter out carbon dioxide and sediments etc. Oil and mineral mining: especially in canada, taking away top layer of peat land to obtain resources that lie underneath. Flooding for hydro dams: wetland transform into a lake, there is no longer vegetation. [flooded: displaces the landscape used by people who come there to fish. Dams & reservoirs: used for hydropower, municipal use, its main purpose is to capture and store runoff water.
