Bottomland Hardwood Ecosystems: Ecological Functions and Status

The protection of bottomland hardwood forests of the southern river valleys of the United States has emerged as one of the most controversial wetland issues of the last decade. These floodplain forests have been extensively diked, cleared, and, most often, planted in soybeans, thereby removing them from the riverine ecosystem. A recent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ study estimates that, in the lower Mississippi Valley the current annual loss rate is 100,000 acres.