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However, many classification systems include four broad categories that most wetlands fall into: marsh, swamp, bog, and fen. [1] While classification systems differ on the exact criteria that define a fen, there are common characteristics that describe fens generally and imprecisely.
A fen is located on a slope, flat, or in a depression and gets most of its water from the surrounding mineral soil or from groundwater (minerotrophic). Thus, while a bog is always acidic and nutrient-poor, a fen may be slightly acidic, neutral, or alkaline, and either nutrient-poor or nutrient-rich. [ 8 ]
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 formally termed a bog, fen, or muskeg. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo. [6]
fen islands: areas of higher land, which were never covered by the growing peat fen edges : uplands surrounding the fens In general, of the three principal soil types found in the Fenland today, the mineral-based silt resulted from the energetic marine environment of the creeks, the clay was deposited in tidal mud-flats and salt-marsh, while ...
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 ...
Over centuries there is a progression from open lake, to a marsh, to a fen (or, on acidic substrates, valley bog), to a carr, as silt or peat accumulates within the lake. Eventually, peat builds up to a level where the land surface is too flat for ground or surface water to reach the center of the wetland.
The swamp and tall-herb fen communities of the NVC were described in Volume 4 of British Plant Communities, first published in 1995, along with the aquatic communities. In total, 28 swamp and tall-herb fen communities have been identified. The swamp and tall-herb fen communities consist of three separate subgroups:
Intertidal forested wetlands; includes mangrove swamps, nipa swamps, tidal freshwater swamp forests Brackish to saline lagoons and marshes with one or more relatively narrow connections with the sea Freshwater lagoons and marshes in the coastal zone