Caleb Hofer - Wetlands and Their Impact on the Environment
- Finn Rachul
- Aug 24, 2025
- 6 min read
(0:00:00) Okay so my name is Caleb Hofer and one of the things that I took notice of during this program was wetlands and their impact on the environment this stood out to me because wherever we went and looked at wetlands I just noticed the
(0:00:24) concentration of life that's always around wetlands both with plant life and animal life.
There's this Ojibwe word "Manidookahmaguhd" it means or it describes the relationship between living things natural systems and cycles, all living things need water, all elements of an ecosystem are connected
(0:00:48) affecting one is affecting all and nothing grows separate from other things, things are alive and react to the environment around them - this includes humans. We are part of the ecosystem and the impact or things that we do impact the environment and the impact of the environment affects humans, so keep this word in mind as we go through this presentation. These are some of the topics I'll be covering: what is a wetland
(0:01:18) some of the different types of wetlands, and how wetlands impact the environment.
This picture is down from the punch bowl at Spruce Woods Park.
These are some of the types of wetlands that we looked at. There's a lot more types but these are the ones that we were at and took those up. This is a bog at Turtle Mountain.
(0:01:47) So a bog usually has a thick moss covering with water underneath. You could walk on it, but you could feel the whole thing just start to sink, and it's a lot of moisture here. This is Swan Lake.
It's interesting because this area has a few kinds of wetlands in the area. You have the Pemina River at the south end.
(0:02:12) And then towards the north end, north shore, there's more marshy type of wetland. This is Marsh's Lake. It's an oxbow that's detached from the Assiniboine River. It's an excellent example of a really healthy wetland. There's a lot of stuff growing there. It's filled with all sorts of amphibious life and lots of signs of other mounds as well.
(0:02:41) Beaver dams also create wetlands. This is from Hogsback at Spruce Woods Park, and this is a very big beaver dam. It's like four feet tall, and it is holding back a lot of water. So when beaver dam, beavers build dams, they create an ecosystem where aquatic plants and aquatic animals will move in.
How wetlands impact the environment?
(0:03:11) a few things I'll look at. They filter water, provide habitat, help control flood and limit effects of drought. They recharge aquifers and they store water. This is also a picture of the punchbowl at Spruce Woods Park.
Wetlands filter water by slowing it down. The roots and the foliage of aquatic plants slow water, allowing nutrients and debris to settle.
(0:03:39) This clears the water, making better habitat for fish and other aquatic life. This picture is of the Pembina River on the north end of Swan Lake. You can see it's quite dirty. It's got quite a lot of algae in there. And that's because it's moving, it's picking up all this stuff. And it's dirty. Compared to a couple of meters, maybe 100 meters in towards the north shore, you have this beautiful clear water.
(0:04:09) This is sago pond weed and it is holding back water and you can see just how crystal clear it is down there because it's not moving and because these plants are filtering out the nutrients and debris. And these two areas were very close together. It's quite interesting how big of an effect plants like this have.
Wetlands absorb nutrients, from farm runoff and other nutrients in the water. There are three ways in which nutrients are removed from water. There's the physical process, the chemical process, and the biological process. The physical process is where particles sink to the bottom or evaporate. The chemical process is when the nutrients change form, either by a chemical reaction, where they end up changing and falling to the bottom or get released into the atmosphere.
(0:05:05) The main process is biological. This is where nutrients are taken in by plants, algae, and bacteria. The nutrients can then be broken down. This is a beaver dam. It's one of the beavers that Dave had put into a valley to create this dam. And this is duckweed that's covering this body of water. Underneath the duckweed, the water is crystal clear. It has a very cool temperature, which is all good science and healthy.
(0:05:35) or its ideal ecosystem for wildlife. The duckweed is really good at filtering water because the roots are directly in the water so they filter out nutrients but because they're directly in contact with the water. Duckweed is usually a very good sign for wetlands.
Eutrophication.
(0:06:03) Eutrophication is a process where the excess of nutrients cause dense growth of plants and cause the death of animal life due to lack of oxygen. So this is again the Pebana River. It's pretty dirty and towards the north shore of Swan Lake we can see these algae blooms and this is an example of the dense growth of plants. This intense growth of plants, once they start dying off, there is less
(0:06:32) oxygen in the water, which causes fish and other marine life to die, to suffocate. And this is a big problem in Swamp Lake. This is just a picture of Dave seeing what's going on with his fish.
Wetlands also provide habitat. Wetlands provide habitat for many species.
(0:06:57) Waterfowl, mammals like beaver and muskrat, fish, amphibians, and insects depend on wetlands. We've already looked at some of the plants that grow in wetlands, but there are an incredible number of species that live together here. While considering all of these species living so closely together, it's quite easy to see the relationship expressed by that Ojibwe word, Manidookahmaguhd.
(0:07:23) And you can easily see how many of these species are dependent on other factors in that ecosystem. Waterfowl, for example, they'll always come back. Because they migrate, they tend to come back to the same wetland areas. So changing one of these areas can have long-lasting effects on waterfowl. And with the efforts of Ducks Unlimited, like we saw, we had a tour with them, we saw some of their work in conservation.
(0:07:53) for wildlife for waterfowl and they're basically trying to protect wetlands so animals like this can have habitat.
Wetlands also recharge aquifers and they impact flood and drought seasons. Wetlands recharge aquifers. Water that is held back by wetlands is cleaned and seeps into the aquifers. Wetlands are crucial to maintain a healthy water table level.
(0:08:23) Wetlands help control floods by absorbing moisture. Because of the soil types and aquatic plants, a lot of water can be retained and it is also then slowly released. Without places like wetlands, the flood water moves into water systems much quickly and this can cause damage. Just imagine a lot of runoff into a river and that river is quickly overwhelmed and the water is flushed out really fast.
(0:08:51) During drought years, the effects of drought aren't as severe because of the reserves of water. Aquifers and plants will not be affected so severely when there are an abundance of wetlands. Water that is stored here in Manitoba impacts the environment here. If water is not held and stored here, it flows away, and all plants and animals and humans here will face water shortage.
(0:09:20) one of the more important reasons why it is important to hold water here with all the different kinds of wetlands so in recap of how wetlands impact the environment they filter water they remove excessive amounts of nutrients they provide habitat they recharge aquifers and they mitigate the impacts of flood and drought seasons in summary wetlands have a strong impact on the ecosystem because of the diversity of life that directly lives within a wetland.
If there's one thing i want you all to take away from this presentation is that our ecosystem
(0:10:00) is dependent on wetlands because all life needs water. By filtering and storing water, local wetlands ensure a healthy ecosystem for plants, animals, and humans right here. Thank you.
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