Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Reorganizing The Waterscape: Asymmetric Loss Of Wetlands And Gain Of Artificial Water Features In A Mixed-Use Watershed, Mark Rains, Kurt Schmidt, Shawn Landry, William Kleindl, Kai Rains

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Between the 1780 and 1980s, more than half of the wetlands in the conterminous US were lost. As wetlands have been lost, numerous artificial water features (AWFs), such as stormwater retention ponds, golf course water features, and reservoirs, have been constructed. We contrasted the loss of wetland area and perimeter to the gain of AWF area and perimeter and further explored how this transformation has altered the spatial characteristics of the waterscape. We conducted this analysis in the Tampa Bay Watershed, a large coastal watershed that lost 33% of its wetland area between the 1950s-2007. Trends have been towards fewer, …