Wetlands Management I - Determination and Delineation

This instructional guide is designed to provide instructors with lecture and laboratory materials that introduce the concepts and practices of wetland determination and delineation.  Student objectives, a general lecture outline and a more detailed PowerPoint presentation with instructor notes are provided.  Criteria for the identification of wetlands and accepted delineation methods as established by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are reviewed including field indicators of hydric soils, hydrology and wetland vegetation. 

Various sources of archived information commonly used in wetland determination and delineation are also described.  A combination laboratory/field exercise is also fully described that guides students through a hands-on experience to illustrate how determinations are performed and how the boundaries of a wetland are defined.  Instructors who are looking for videos or additional print and web-based resources on the topics covered here should consult the resources list provided at the end of this module where these resources are summarized and cited.

Module Objectives

Upon successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Distinguish between “wetland determination” and “wetland delineation”
• Describe the need for wetland identification and delineation in wetland management
• Identify current and archived sources of information that could be accessed to perform a wetland determination or delineation
• Describe field indicators of wetlands based on soils, hydrology and vegetation criteria

Lecture Outline

Sample PowerPoint Slide with instructor notes

Return to NCSR Wetlands Ecology and Management Description

Download PDF; Download PPT; Download MS Word I; Download MS Word II (23.2 MB)

Curriculum produced by NCSR. Funding Provided by the National Science Foundation