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Freshwater Marshes and Swamps

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The Wetland Book

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Abstract

Freshwater swamps and marshes comprise a large variety of nontidal forested and non-forested wetlands. They have hydric soils and do not accumulate large amounts of peat (noting that the definition of peatlands comprises wetlands with at least 30 % dry mass of dead organic material and greater than 30 cm deep). A swamp is dominated by trees and a marsh by emergent herbaceous plants, with both containing a wide variety of submerged and floating-leaved plants. However, the terms have not been used consistently in different parts of the world and many wetlands may contain both treed and non-treed components.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, PO Box 789, 2640, Albury, NSW, Australia

    C. M. Finlayson

  2. Institute for Water Education, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands

    C. M. Finlayson

Authors
  1. C. M. Finlayson
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Correspondence to C. M. Finlayson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Ecology and Biodiversity, Charles Sturt University Inst. for Land, Water and Society, Albury, New South Wales, Australia

    C. Max Finlayson

  2. Dept. of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources, Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada

    G. Randy Milton

  3. Nature Management Services, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

    R. Crawford Prentice

  4. Charles Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales, Australia

    Nick C. Davidson

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Finlayson, C.M. (2016). Freshwater Marshes and Swamps. In: Finlayson, C., Milton, G., Prentice, R., Davidson, N. (eds) The Wetland Book. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6173-5_200-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6173-5_200-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6173-5

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