Freshwater marshes and swamps

Abstract

Freshwater swamps and marshes comprise a large variety of nontidal forested and non-forested wetlands. They have hydric soils and do not accumulate large amounts of peat (noting that the definition of peatlands comprises wetlands with at least 30% dry mass of dead organic material and greater than 30 cm deep). A swamp is dominated by trees and a marsh by emergent herbaceous plants, with both containing a wide variety of submerged and floating-leaved plants. However, the terms have not been used consistently in different parts of the world and many wetlands may contain both treed and non-treed components.