An out-of-the-way quagmire or boggy boondock off a lonely road might seem like just so much wasteland rather than something to be concerned about when it’s paved over for a new strip mall or big-box store. But citizens are realizing that these plots where land meets water provide a vital and valuable ecological function.

In addition to nurturing essential biodiversity, wetlands purify water, produce fish, store carbon dioxide that would otherwise increase global warming and protect shorelines from floods, storm surges and erosion. “When we lose wetlands, we’re losing something we won’t recover for years,” remarks Dr. Moreno-Mateos, a wetland ecologist at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, at Stanford University. “When people develop that huge shopping mall, it will take centuries to restore the functions we had before.” After-the-fact restoration efforts yield far more limited benefits.

Source: plosBiology.org