Journal of Coastal Zone Management

Coastal Wetlands

This swamp is in the Florida Everglades. Peat bogs are freshwater wetlands that develop in areas with standing water and low soil fertility. Marshes develop along the edges of rivers and lakes. Wetland types found in coastal watersheds include salt marshes, bottomland hardwood swamps, fresh marshes, mangrove swamps, and shrubby depressions known in the southeast United States as "pocosins." Coastal wetlands cover about 40 million acres and make up 38 percent of the total wetland acreage in the conterminous United States. Eighty-one percent of coastal wetlands in the conterminous United States are located in the southeast.