Artificial wetlands, constructed to create wildlife habitat or to mitigate drainage elsewhere, often do little to improve water quality, new research from the U.S. Geological Survey concludes.
The problem is that the constructed wetlands most often are separate basins, isolated from streams and rivers.
“Unless a wetland can intercept the large amounts of pollutants in streams and rivers, it doesn’t have a chance to remove any of the pollution,” said USGS ecologist Greg Noe.
Read a USGS news release on the research. Link to an abstract of the research paper. To download the full paper, you must subscribe to the Journal of Environmental Quality or pay a fee.