According to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; “Wetlands are areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres."
Categorisation
There are several ways in which to categorise wetlands. A wetland may be described as:
• Marshes/swamps: areas where water is more or less permanently at the surface and/or causing saturation of the soil (e.g. papyrus swamp, fen, peatlands)
• Shallow lakes: areas of permanent or semi-permanent water with little flow (e.g. ponds, salt lakes, volcanic crater lakes).
• Coasts: areas between land and open sea that are not influenced by rivers (e.g. shorelines, beaches, mangroves and coral reefs)
• Estuaries: where rivers meet the sea and water changes from fresh to salt as it meets the sea (e.g. deltas, tidal mudflats and salt marches)
• Floodplains: areas next to the permanent course of a river that extends to the edge of the valley (e.g. ox-bow lakes and river-islands)
Source: www.wetlands.org
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