What are the functions of a wetland?
The most important function of a wetland is to remove nutrients from surface and groundwater. Many physical and biogeochemical processes in wetlands provide a natural filtering system, which helps maintain and improve water quality. The removal of nutrients in a wetland happens in many ways. One is due to the presence of anaerobic soils, which gives rise to an aerobic-anaerobic interface near the soil surface. This provides for biological and chemical conditions which result in nutrient removal. Wetlands also have the ability to transform inorganic forms of nutrients to organic forms. Organic forms of nutrients undergo biological decomposition and get transformed into available form of nutrients.
