Extensive floodplains, wide coastal plains and abundant rainfall have created rich and diverse wetland resources in the Southeast (Fig. 1). At the time of European settlement, wetlands may have occupied a third of the land surface within this portion of the United States (Dahl 1990). Nearly half of Louisiana and Florida may have been wetlands.

The landscape in this region, as in most of the eastern United States, has been altered dramatically over the past 200 years. Wetlands have been drained to develop agricultural and forestry resources; they have been filled or otherwise altered to construct commercial and urban developments, transportation networks and navigational facilities (Tiner 1984).

Southeast wetlands play an integral role in the region's quality of life -- maintaining water quality and quantity, supporting diverse and plentiful fish and wildlife habitat, and providing economic livelihood and recreation for millions of people.

A few specific examples of the contribution of wetlands to the region are noted here.

A single 2,300-acre Georgia floodplain wetland naturally provides pollution control benefits worth an estimated $1 million each year (Wharton 1970). The 552,000-acre Green Swamp complex northeast of Tampa, Florida, stores water for eventual aquifer recharge with an estimated value of $25 million annually (Brown 1984). The value of standing timber in southern wetland forests has been estimated at $8 billion (Tiner 1984).

The wetlands of the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Louisiana provide winter habitat for more than 400,000 geese and three million ducks (Mississippi Flyway Council 1991). Louisiana is second only to Alaska in volume of commercial fishery landings with a harvest of over 1.2 billion pounds, with a value of $264 millon in 1989 (National Marine Fisheries Service 1991). Louisiana's catch is made up primarily of wetland-dependent species such as brown shrimp, white shrimp, blue crab, seatrout and spot (Gosselink 1984).

Freshwater fishes of the region also depend on wetlands. For example, 53 species of fish are known to use flooded bottomland hardwood wetlands during their life cycles (Wharton et al. 1981).

Wetlands provide the region with a variety of recreational opportunities as well. In 1985 alone, more than two million people fished Florida's fresh waters. Nearly one million people each year visit Everglades National Park, America's largest wetland park and a designated Wetland of International Importance (Ramsar Convention Bureau). Table 1 provides a representative list of wetland values.

Table 1.
Major wetland functions and values: Fish and wildlife habitat, environmental quality support, socio-economic values, hydrologic functions.

To manage wetlands resources effectively, it is important to understand their extent and the influences that may be affecting them. Hefner and Brown's (1984) report on wetland trends in the Southeast Region estimated the rate of wetland conversion in the Southeast from the mid-1950's to the mid-1970's, a time immediately preceding governmental wetland protection efforts.

The present report covers a period in which government programs and policies -- and environmental awareness -- were beginning to influence wetland management decisions. This regional information can serve as an indicator of the effectiveness of public policies and programs intended to reduce the loss of the nation's wetlands and to identify areas experiencing wetland change.