ABSTRACT

Recognizing the diversity of wetlands that exist around the globe, scientists have developed numerous classication schemes to group wetlands into categories based on similar characteristics, environmental inuences, functions, and/or uses. Various systems have been created for many purposes including (1) to group wetlands into categories for scientic studies and comparison; (2) to provide common terminology to describe similarities and differences among wetlands; (3) to provide the foundation for conducting wetland inventories that report on the status, trends, functions, and condition of wetlands in specic geographic areas (e.g., watersheds, counties, provinces, states, countries, and the world); and (4) for conservation, use, and management purposes. Wetlands may be classied biologically, physically, chemically, hydrogeomorphically, and in other ways depending on the discipline and interests of the classier (e.g., scientist, organization, or government agency). The term “classication” has also been used to refer to various methods to identify wetlands using remotely sensed data-image classication-but this type of classication is not the subject of this chapter (see Chapters 5, 6, 8, 9, and others in Section III of this book for discussion of image classication).