Environment

Benefits of Wetlands

Wetlands were long regarded as wastelands but are now recognised as important features in the landscape that provide benefits for people and other animals. Wetlands are home to an abundant variety of plants, water bugs, reptiles, birds, fish, frogs and mammals - they are considered to be 'biological supermarkets'. They are among the most productive environments in the world and form a link between our land and water resources.

Natural wetlands are sometimes hard to recognise because they have different appearances. Some are wet all the time; others can dry out. They vary in size and some have even been changed by human activity such as farming or the building of roads or dams. Natural wetlands include areas such as reed marshes, billabongs, permanent freshwater lakes, ponds, swamps, coastal lagoons and estuaries.
A Natural Wetlands
A Constructed Wetland

Constructed wetlands (made by humans) are built to act like natural wetlands. They are used to help treat stormwater and catch floodwaters. Constructed wetlands include dams, lakes and ponds.

Constructed wetlands help clean pollutants from stormwater that runs of the paved areas of a catchment. Stormwater comes from urban areas after rain and flows across roads and other hard surfaces where it can pick up pollution such as rubbish, chemicals and sediment.

This polluted stormwater is caught and treated by constructed wetlands before it flows downstream. Constructed wetlands can also help prevent increase flows caused by the hard surfaces which wouldn't normally be there in a natural catchment and prevent erosion of the bed and banks of the creek downstream.

Many constructed wetlands also act as detention basins and have the capacity to store more water in flood events and help mitigate flooding downstream.

Rock Riffles at William Lawson Wetlands which help slow down the water speed