In celebration of American Wetlands Month, you are invited to join us for a webinar

May 29 at 3:00 p.m. eastern: Please join us--both members and nonmembers--for our American Wetlands Month Members webinar: Designing Wetlands for Rare Amphibians – presented by Tom Biebighauser, U.S. Forest Service. To register, click here.

May is American Wetlands Month

This May is the 23rd anniversary of American Wetlands Month.  American Wetlands Month provides an opportunity to celebrate the vital importance of wetlands to the Nation's ecological, economic, and social health. It is also a great time of year to get outside to discover and teach others about wetlands.  This year ASWM is celebrating with a focus on wetland restoration.  As our collective knowledge on how to carry out successful wetland restoration projects has increased, so has our ability to apply it to solve identified problems. Increasingly wetland restoration is becoming a tool not only for bringing back lost wetlands, but for managing and increasing wildlife populations, reducing flood heights, protecting water quality, mitigating climate change and providing important recreation and economic opportunities.  In the future we can look forward to exploring new ways to leverage wetland restoration to solve threats to human health and safety, wildlife, sustainable agriculture and a host of other challenges.  Please join us in celebrating American Wetlands Month. 

Adaptation planning has moved to the forefront of climate change science in recent years. Sea level rise scientists at NASA, USGS and other agencies engaged in an online discussion about the state of the science for sea level rise and adaptation planning in early April 2013. Salt marsh ecology and wetlands play a vital role in our global understanding of sea level rise and its implications for coastal systems. ASWM maintains a robust set of climate change web resource pages on sea level rise, adaptation, carbon sequestration and tools for planning and studying the impacts on wetlands.

Most recently, ASWM’s State Climate Change Adaptation summaries have been updated—expanding a dozen state summaries to include current climate change adaptation planning efforts. These feature state-driven, state-funded and state-supported projects that identify a need for climate change adaptation for wetlands and water resources. To see the state Climate Change Adaptation summaries, including threats and impacts identified in each state, explore the map and individual profile pages for each state. States marked green on the map indicate that a state’s climate change adaptation planning efforts emphasize the inclusion of wetlands. If a state is yellow on the map, there is some level of climate change work related to wetlands and water resources—though not a full adaptation plan involved.  If a state is grey, there may be information for that state that is climate change related, such as a national or nonprofit organization conducting climate change adaptation planning work for that state or region. Please contact us if a state’s summary needs to be expanded and updated further to include new adaptation planning efforts for wetlands. In addition, state-based and regional research conducted on sea level rise, including the development of tools, mappers and models, are found on ASWM’s Sea Level Rise Tools page.

By Jon Kusler, Esq., – Association of State Wetland Managers – December 2012

On December 4, 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision with impact on how government agencies at all levels of government will need to address flooding. See Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States, U.S., No. 11-597, reversed and remanded 12/4/12. The Court held that government flooding of lands need not be permanent to be a Fifth Amendment “taking” of property without payment of just compensation. Governments have long been held liable for long duration and/or repeated flooding under certain circumstances. So, the decision is to a considerable extent consistent with existing law. But the ruling of the case is not necessarily confined to long duration or repeated flooding. To read full paper, click here.