Nearly half (47 percent or 48.9 million acres) of the wetlands in the conterminous United States are in the 10 states of the Southeast -- Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Wetlands and deepwater habitats comprise 21 percent of the region's area.

Wetlands alone cover 16 percent of the region's area, compared to a 5-percent overall coverage in area for the lower 48 states.

Wood Ducks
© LARRY R. DITTO

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, the average annual net loss of wetlands in the Southeast was 259,000 acres. Wetland losses within the region accounted for 89 percent of the net national wetland losses for the period.

Estuarine (saltwater) wetland acreages remained stable throughout most of the region except for coastal Louisiana, where substantial losses were identified.

Freshwater wetlands declined dramatically. Forested wetlands such as bottomland hardwood swamps and cypress sloughs declined by 3.1 million acres, with heaviest losses in the Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Flats of North Carolina and in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

North Carolina stood out among all southeastern states with an estimated loss of 1.2 million acres in palustrine forested and scrub/shrub wetlands. Although the average annual net loss for all combined wetland types declined compared to earlier periods, the rate at which freshwater forested wetlands were lost and converted increased.