9781422277553

Large elephant herds flourish in Botswana’s Okavango region. The area is rich in regularly flooded wetlands, where elephants can drink, bathe, and feed all year without having to migrate vast distances.

built up to a depth of at least 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 cm). They are very acidic , and the soil does not have enough nutri- ents for most plants. Fens , on the other hand, are peatlands rich in nutrients and low in acidity. Floodplains are lands beside rivers that are flooded regular- ly in the wet season. They can cover huge areas when the land is particularly flat. Floodplain soils are usually very rich in plant nutrients from the muddy silts deposited by the floodwaters. Estuaries, deltas , and tidal flats are all regions where rivers enter the sea. They contain some of the planet’s most complex wetlands, with regularly changing mixtures of fresh and salt

What Are Wetlands?

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