Brownbag: Assessing the Functional Status of Created Wetlands in Eastern Virginia via a Soil and Vegetative Developmental Trajectory

Sara Kreisel (’07), a M.S. candidate at The College of William and Mary, will present the results of her Master’s research on created wetlands.

Creation of wetlands has been used since the 1980s as a tool for the environmental mitigation of natural wetlands lost to development. Although current wetland policy attempts to compensate for lost wetland acreage, replacement of function may lag considerably. To measure this suspected lag she evaluated the plant community and soil composition of nine created palustrine forested wetlands in Virginia relative to natural wetland standards. A previous study in 2003 indicated that the vegetation and soil composition was far from that observed in natural wetlands. This study re-sampled these wetlands in 2008 to determine whether the functional gap between created and natural wetlands has changed with age.

Brownbag: Noon, Friday, April 30th 2010 in Van Wickle Hall, Room 108