Lesson 4:
Wetlands
In the previous section we saw how floods can create large amounts of damage. Certain areas of land that can help reduce the damage caused by floods are wetlands. They can be natural or man-made. Wetlands are usually flooded for part or all of the year. "Wetland" is a diverse word that describes many different kinds of wet land. They include bogs, swamps, saltwater and freshwater marshes, fens, and some coastal areas, to name a few.
STEP 1: Wetlands serve many important purposes. They often help to store extra water during times of intense rain or snowmelt. Water moves very slowly through wetlands, so they can slow down flash floods.
When water moves slowly it can not carry as much sediment or dirt in the water. The sediment drops out in wetlands, and therefore wetlands can make the water cleaner. Chemicals and pollutants can either be attached to sediment or dissolved in the water. If the sediment drops out of the water, the pollutants drop out with them.
However, the dissolved chemicals do not drop out of the water. They can be taken out of the water in wetlands when plants take up the water. When plants take up water, they often take up any chemicals in the water and they get trapped in the plant. Have you ever put a piece of celery in red water? You see that the celery takes up the red color as well. The same thing happens in wetlands.
As you can see, wetlands provide many important benefits for flood protection and water quality. They are also important to animals.
Think about the following questions.
For more information about wetlands check out the following websites:
STEP 2: Now we'll look at some wetlands in Fort Collins.
Do the wetlands occur along the rivers?
Why do you think this occurs?
Do they occur in the same areas?
Why do you think a wetland in a retention pond would be better than
just a retention pond?
Do the wetlands occur within public lands?
Most of them do. When the city decides to build a wetland, they need
to keep it on public land, so most of the man-made wetlands are on public
land.
STEP 3: Let's look at where any runoff around the schools will end up. Remember that runoff is the water that flows over the surface of the ground and streets when it rains. It carries with it all of the pollution on the driveways, streets, and parking lots. It can flow into ditches, canals, streams, lakes, retention ponds, or storm drains. Storm drains are the drains that you see along the curbs of streets and in parking lots. They often have a metal grate over them. They allow water that is flowing down the street or parking lot to enter directly into the stormwater system. The stormwater system moves the water through canals, retention ponds, and ultimately into streams and rivers.
Let's take a look at the full stormwater system around the schools.
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This view shows all of the pipes, ditches, and storm drains of the stormwater system around Webber Junior High School and Johnson Elementary School.
This is a close up of Webber Junior High School and the Regency Pond
Wetland. You can zoom in by clicking and dragging with the "zoom
button,"
.
Notice that runoff from Webber Junior High School will enter the stormwater system and flow directly into the Regency Pond Wetland. This is a good example of why it is important to reduce or eliminate pollution in the first place. If pollution is never created then it won't have a chance to be picked up by the rainwater and enter into our wetlands, streams, lakes, and retention ponds.
That's all. We hope you enjoyed learning about watersheds and wetlands in Fort Collins.