Wetlands of the United States: An Introduction, with Emphasis on Their Plant Communities

The climatic and physiographic variations in the United States have produced a great diversity of wetlands, ranging from cold wet tundra and black spruce forested wetlands in Alaska to temperate hardwood swamps in the East to subhumid pothole marshes in the western interior and Midwest to desert wetlands in the Arid Southwest to steamy subtropical marshes and wet hammocks in Florida and tropical rainforests in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Within regions, local differences in water sources, soils, and geology further influence the plant composition of wetlands. In addition to natural processes affecting wetlands, human actions also have a profound influence on water quality (e.g., pollutants and increased nutrients), sedimentation rates, and hydrologic regimes.