Wetlands of Greenland

Abstract

Wetlands are known from all the bioclimatic zones of Greenland except from the polar desert zone (Bay 1997) i.e. they are distributed from the subarctic areas in the continental fjord region of South Greenland to the continental zone in high arctic Greenland. Greenland has the longest extent of all the arctic countries, which give rise to a variation of the species composition of the plant communities. The wetlands are mostly found in the lowlands, and are classified according to the Ramsar convention into inland wetlands: lakes, ponds, fens, grasslands, and marine wetlands i.e. salt marshes along coasts.