Weller suggests that much applied research is needed before biologists and 

 other scientists have an adequate grasp of the best approaches to use in a given 

 situation with regard to wetland restoration or augmentation of wetland habitat. 

 Research should be directed toward developing rapid wetland habitat evaluation 

 techniques, knowledge of wetland plant associations and plant growth rates (for 

 use in wetland restoration efforts), and long-term biotic community dynamics. 

 The paper obviously is a good starting point for the introduction of a wide 

 variety of cost and benefit data in the development of cost effective wetlands 

 habitat valuation techniques, though clearly a sustained, creative, research 

 effort is needed before economists learn how to value the panoply of habitat 

 provision benefits discussed in this paper. 



34. Clark, J.R. 1979. Mitigation and grassroots conservation of wetlands- 

 urban issues. Pages 141-151 in The American Fisheries Society mitigation 

 symposium [Held in Fort Collins in 1979]. American Fisheries Society, 

 Bethesda, MD. 



The author considers the difficulties of mitigating coastal wetlands loss 

 in the greater metropolitan New York and Los Angeles areas. Wetland preservation 

 benefits are high in these two regions, as are the potential returns to 

 development activities. This leads to protracted political and administrative 

 conflict over land use. 



35. Crites, R.W. 1979. Economics of aquatic treatment systems. Pages 475- 

 485 in EPA aquaculture systems for wastewater treatment symposium. EPA 

 430/9-80-006. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water 

 Program Operations, Washington, DC. [Can also be obtained on request by 

 writing the consulting firm of Metcalf and Eddy, Sacramento, California.] 



The author reports that aquatic wastewater treatments are very cost 

 effective relative to the conventional chemical and land-based systems. Aquatic 

 systems include artificial wetlands, macrophytes (principally water hyacinths), 

 invertebrate-based systems, finfish systems, and integrated polyculture systems 

 that use various aquatic plants and animals as treatment components. The 

 artificial wetland system has low costs relative to conventional methods, but 

 the author suggests that they are not as efficient as natural wetland systems. 



36. Hoffman, D. 1979. Wetland$ . . . for value received. Ontario Natural ist 

 19{2):35-37. 



The author gives a brief, useful history of wetland drainage activity in 

 the Canadian Province of Ontario. Many of the wetlands of southern Ontario have 

 been drained and filled, often for agricultural use. However, extensive peat 

 bogs remain in northern Ontario. The peat bogs offer a fascinating example of 

 the need for regulatory activity to preserve the benefits conferred by the 

 wetlands. Certain private activities that tend to deplete the resource base 

 currently use wetland resources as a highly productive factor input. Cultivation 

 and drainage activity in Ontario's Holland Marsh (the market garden center of 

 Canada) are depleting the agriculturally productive peat bog layer 1-2 inches 

 per year. Eventually this peat layer--whose current average depth is 23 feet-- 

 will disappear. A conventional assessment of the panoply of wetland amenity 

 values is sketched in the introduction. 



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