Wetlands are one of Georgia’s most valuable resources. They help filter polluted runoff and protect our coastal areas from damaging floods. Wetlands provide a habitat for many threatened and endangered species, such as the wood stork and the bog turtle. Many commercially important fish species begin life in wetland nurseries. Wetlands also allow for many diverse recreational activities such as photography, fishing and canoeing.
Georgia has more than 7.7 million acres of wetlands. Georgia’s wetlands are diverse, ranging from mountain seepage areas to estuarine tidal flats. This diversity is primarily due to the wide variety of landforms present, each of which can have different geologic and hydrologic characteristics. The greatest acreages of wetlands are in the coastal plain, where flood-plain wetlands are most extensive and tidal freshwater swamps and estuarine marshes meet. Most of Georgia’s wetlands are forested freshwater habitats associated with streams. The Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, one of the largest freshwater wetlands in the United States, is a mosaic of emergent marshes, aquatic beds, forested and scrub-shrub wetlands, and forested uplands.
Unfortunately, Georgia’s wetlands are disappearing due to development, dredging, stream channelization and pollution. One quarter of the millions of acres of wetlands that existed in the 1700′s are gone, and 7,000 acres disappear annually.
What Can You Do? Get involved with Adopt-A-Wetland volunteers.