ABSTRACT

The threats to wetlands posed by dams, barrages and canals are often countered by arguments for power generation, irrigation, improved communication and access to remote areas.

In many cases, industrialised countries have changed completely the natural regime of rivers to control water and meet the ever increasing demands of expanding cities and industries. The seasonally inundated floodplain marshes, swamps and forests of Europe and North America have contracted and been cut steadily into smaller and smaller segments. They remain significant landscape elements in only a few exceptional areas, such as the Mississippi Valley and parts of the Danube basin, and as constricted fringes of smaller rivers which have escaped development.