Yona Photo

Swamps on the outskirts of Guangzhou’s BaiYun Shan park

Swamps

A swamp is a wetland that is forested.Many swamps occur along large rivers where they are critically dependent upon natural water level fluctuations.Other swamps occur on the shores of large lakes. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation.The two main types of swamp are “true” or swamp forests and “transitional” or shrub swamps. In the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more correctly termed a bog or muskeg. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water or seawater. Some of the world’s largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.

Swamps are characterized by very slow-moving waters. They are usually associated with adjacent rivers or lakes. In some cases, rivers become swamps for a distance. Swamps and other wetlands have traditionally held a very low property value compared to fields, prairies, or woodlands. They have a reputation for being unproductive land that cannot easily be utilized for human activities, other than perhaps hunting and trapping. Farmers, for example, typically drained swamps next to their fields so as to gain more land usable for planting crops. Many societies now realize that swamps are critically important to providing fresh water and oxygen to all life, and that they are often breeding grounds for a wide variety of life. Indeed, floodplain swamps are extremely important in fish production.

Source: Wikipedia