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"No Net loss" is the United States government's overall policy goal regarding wetlands preservation. The goal of the policy is to balance wetland loss due to economic development with wetlands reclamation, mitigation, and restorations efforts, so that the total acreage of wetlands in the country does not decrease, but remains constant or increases.
"No net loss" is defined by the International Finance Corporation as "the point at which the project-related impacts on biodiversity are balanced by measures taken to avoid and minimize the project's impacts, to understand on site restoration and finally to offset significant residual impacts, if any, on an appropriate geographic scale (e.g local, landscape-level, national, regional)."
The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) is a 1990 United States federal law that provides funds for wetland enhancement. [1] The law is implemented by federal and state agencies, focusing on restoration of lost wetlands of the Gulf Coast , as well as protecting the wetlands from future deterioration.
There are a number of government agencies in the United States that are in some way concerned with the protection of wetlands. The top five are the Army Corps of Engineers (ACoE), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). [5]
The result is the fragmentation of these ecosystems, resulting in loss of populations and diversity [17] and endangering the remaining fragments of the ecosystem. [18] Flood control creates a sharper boundary between water and land than in undisturbed floodplains, reducing physical diversity. [ 19 ]
A lack of flooding has been shown to decrease the amount of habitat heterogeneity in riparian ecosystems as wetland depressions in the floodplain no longer fill and hold water. [9] Because habitat heterogeneity is correlated with species diversity, levees can cause reductions in the overall biodiversity of riparian ecosystems.
Commonly, wetland loss is defined as the conversion of vegetated wetlands into either uplands or drained areas, unvegetated wetlands (e.g., mudflats), or (submerged habitats (open water). According to this, and similar definitions, wetland loss includes both land loss and land consumption as components of it.
Coastal hazards are physical phenomena that expose a coastal area to the risk of property damage, loss of life, and environmental degradation.Rapid-onset hazards last a few minutes to several days and encompass significant cyclones accompanied by high-speed winds, waves, and surges or tsunamis created by submarine (undersea) earthquakes and landslides.