ABSTRACT
Construction and management of wetlands to foster development of a variety of plant communities that are interspersed with respect to one another and open water and that include those species known to be important to desirable wetland-dependent animals will probably become populated by a variety of wetland-dependent animal species. This chapter addresses wildlife habitat and visual-cultural benefits as ancillary benefits of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment. Visual-cultural benefits from wetlands construction are directly related to complexity of the plant communities and their degree of interspersion. From the perspective of ecological aesthetics, wetlands are visually and educationally unusually rich environments. Wetlands also provide excellent outdoor research laboratories, particularly if water budgets are known. This aspect is certainly one of the most valuable ancillary benefits. The magnitude of ancillary benefits realized from wetlands constructed for wastewater treatment will be primarily dependent upon the degree of complexity and the amount of interspersion of the hydrophytic plant communities.
