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<p>Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services, yet across the North American Prairie Pothole Region many natural wetlands have been replaced or modified for urban stormwater management. Despite the increasing use of constructed and modified wetlands, limited information exists on how physicochemical conditions vary across wetlands representing different levels of modification. This study evaluated surface water and muck chemistry across 20 wetlands spanning a rural–urban gradient in Alberta, Canada, including reference, retained, modified, and constructed wetlands. Multivariate analyses were used to assess whether physicochemical gradients corresponded with existing management-based wetland classifications. Principal component and cluster analyses revealed substantial overlap among wetland classes, with salinity-related variables, particularly sodium, sulphate, chloride, potassium, and specific conductance, representing the dominant gradients structuring wetland chemistry. Reference and existing retained wetlands generally exhibited higher salinity signatures, whereas modified and constructed wetlands were more similar to one another. Procrustes analysis indicated moderate concordance between surface water and muck chemistry across wetlands, suggesting coupled physicochemical dynamics between the two media. Although wetland classes differed significantly overall, observed variability was only partially explained by management-based classifications. These findings highlight the need to complement such classifications with physicochemical gradients such as salinity and nutrient characteristics.</p>

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Physicochemical gradients in urban prairie wetlands support the need for water-chemistry-based stormwater wetland classification

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月16日

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  • Abisola Allison,
  • Sara Valizadeh,
  • Ariane Cantin,
  • Jan J. H. Ciborowski,
  • Felix C. Nwaishi

摘要

Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services, yet across the North American Prairie Pothole Region many natural wetlands have been replaced or modified for urban stormwater management. Despite the increasing use of constructed and modified wetlands, limited information exists on how physicochemical conditions vary across wetlands representing different levels of modification. This study evaluated surface water and muck chemistry across 20 wetlands spanning a rural–urban gradient in Alberta, Canada, including reference, retained, modified, and constructed wetlands. Multivariate analyses were used to assess whether physicochemical gradients corresponded with existing management-based wetland classifications. Principal component and cluster analyses revealed substantial overlap among wetland classes, with salinity-related variables, particularly sodium, sulphate, chloride, potassium, and specific conductance, representing the dominant gradients structuring wetland chemistry. Reference and existing retained wetlands generally exhibited higher salinity signatures, whereas modified and constructed wetlands were more similar to one another. Procrustes analysis indicated moderate concordance between surface water and muck chemistry across wetlands, suggesting coupled physicochemical dynamics between the two media. Although wetland classes differed significantly overall, observed variability was only partially explained by management-based classifications. These findings highlight the need to complement such classifications with physicochemical gradients such as salinity and nutrient characteristics.