Climate and land-use change in wetlands: a dedication

Future climate and land-use change may wreak havoc on wetlands, with the potential to erode their values as harbors for biota and providers of human services. Wetlands are important to protect, particularly because these provide a variety of ecosystem services including wildlife habitat, water purification, flood storage, and storm protection (Mitsch, Bernal, and Hernandez 2015). Without healthy wetlands, future generations may become increasingly less in harmony with the sustainability of the Earth.

To this end, the thematic feature on climate and land-use change in wetlands explores the critical role of wetlands in the overall health and well-being of humans and our planet. Our special feature contributes to the understanding of the idea that the health of natural ecosystems and humans are linked and potentially stressed by climate change and land-use change (Horton and Lo 2015; McDonald 2015). In particular, this special issue considers the important role of wetlands in the environment, and how land-use and environmental change might affect them in the future.

I thought as I grew up in the environmental era after the publication of books by Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich (1962 and 1971, respectively) that the Earth was on the mend. The signs of recovery were all around after the period of post-WWII expansionism of my parent’s generation. By the late 1980s, Sandhill Cranes returned to the wetlands below our farm. Bald Eagles began to successfully nest along the rivers as pollutants fell below a critical level. The environmentally minded quietly cheered at apparent improvements through the end of the twentieth century. Meanwhile, insidious problems lurked in the background. Human populations have continued to expand, with an increase of demands for the water critical to wetlands (Middleton and Souter 2016). Many coastal wetlands are suffering from a lack of freshwater and sediment as rivers are leveed or diverted to cities and farms (Middleton and Souter 2016; Ward et al. 2016; White and Kaplan 2016). Also, water returned to wetlands may have damaging amounts of pollutants (Joyce, Simpson, and Casanova 2016; Wainger et al. 2017; Arnold et al. 2017). Clearly, a new era has emerged in the twenty-first century where some of the improvements of the earlier century are disappearing before our eyes.

The articles in this special feature are joined in the common theme that our vital wetlands could be degraded by climate and land-use change. The death of vegetation on the coast is often related to over-extraction of freshwater, sea level rise, and subsidence. This special feature gives detailed information on the responses of various vegetation types to climate and land-use change including mangroves (Ward et al. 2016), freshwater forests (Middleton and Souter 2016; White and Kaplan 2016), wet grasslands (Joyce, Simpson, and Casanova 2016), and submersed aquatic species (Wainger et al. 2017; Arnold et al. 2017).

My college-day optimism that the Earth would quickly mend itself has given way to an environmental stoicism. To that end, this special feature seeks to illuminate potential solutions to imminent threats to wetlands, which can foster their health and sustainability. Far from hopeless, an important way forward is for us to foster a better understanding among people of their connection to the Earth and our well-being. The exploration of the sustainability of human and natural environments is after all one of the underlying purposes of this journal.

Future research is necessary to help us understand how to maintain vital wetland ecosystem services despite the anticipated increases in human populations and their demands on environment. Future management to conserve species may be made more challenging if future environments are hotter, drier, or more flooded than current conditions. For wetlands, better detection of biotic stress through field observation and remote sensing techniques could be a way to trigger improved water management. Because water for humans and natural systems may become more limiting, research on minimum flows of water to wetlands is also critical.

This special feature is dedicated to Jing Duan, the young editor who produced this Ecosystem Health and Sustainability volume, but who tragically died in a car accident before its ultimate completion. She was committed to the purpose of this journal, and we offer this special feature in honor of her memory. We also dedicate this issue to the work of the many young people like Jing Duan who work tirelessly toward the conservation of wetlands.