Wetlands of Bottomland Hardwood Forests

Book excerpt: These Proceedings comprise two parts. Part I contains eight contributed papers on hydrology, fauna, soils, forests, agriculture and ecology. Part II comprises reports resulting from the five interdisciplinary workgroups whose participants included ecologists, botanists, zoologists, engineers, hydrologists, agrologists, dendrologists, resource managers and other specialists. Their aim was to evaluate conservation and management practices for wetland portions of the bottomland forests of the southeastern United States and to provide technical advice to responsible federal agencies. Thus the book is a state-of-knowledge review of scientific literature and current research, particularly that necessary to understand the effects of alterations such as forest clearing, land drainage or levee building that impair natural functions, i.e. production of timber, maintenance of water quality, flood water storage, support of migrating waterfowl and fish, carbon dioxide balance of the atmosphere etc.