WETLAND BANKING

A term used to describe actions required to be taken on the part of developers to mitigate and replace the loss of wetlands. Through various federal and state regulations governing land use on wetlands, when impacts to wetlands cannot be avoided or minimized, wetlands must be replaced. The replacement process allows for the creation or restoration of any number of wetlands to provide replacement credit for future wetlands impacts or debits, i.e., reductions in existing wetlands. Wetland banking not only insures successful wetland restoration, but also typically requires that replacement occurs before targeted wetlands are removed, thereby at least temporarily increasing the overall amount of wetlands. Also, wetland banking credits may frequently be sold in an open market arrangement thereby facilitating both more efficient land use planning and habitat preservation. Wetland creation under the wetland banking process also allows planners to target wetland construction in precisely those areas and watersheds which have the greatest need for the benefits of wetlands, e.g., flood storage, water quality improvement, habitat creation or preservation, etc. Also see Wetland "Clumping" (Aggregation), Wetland Mitigation, Wetland Mitigation Bank, Wetlands (General Definition), Wetlands (COE and EPA), Wetlands (NRCS), Wetlands (USFWS), Wetlands (California), Wetlands (Nevada), Wetlands, Benefits, and Wetlands, Palustrine.