ABSTRACT
Wetlands provide a unique resource in urban environments. Human settlement is typically high in areas with wetland ecosystems, due to the types of services wetlands and aquatic systems provide. Remnant wetlands are native ecosystems that pre-exist urban development and maintain native wetland structure and function to varying degrees. Constructed wetlands are engineered systems that are designed and built primarily by civil and water resource engineers to provide a particular function or set of functions beneficial to humans. Wastewater treatment wetlands are typically planted with herbaceous marsh vegetation and occasionally small shrubs. Accidental wetlands are the result of human activity in the landscape, and as such are ‘constructed’, but they are environments that have arisen unintentionally in urban settings. Communities of organisms in accidental wetlands are typically a mixture of vegetation and animals that have populated the site after abandonment.
