Join us in advocating for wetland protections

The problem 

Wetlands are some of Earth’s most vital ecosystems, but they are at serious risk. Wetlands clean our water, provide critical habitat, support recreational industries and are pivotal in protecting communities from flooding, our nation’s costliest natural hazard. Wetland loss due to development and ongoing rollbacks in protections are putting more communities and ecosystems at risk. 

What we are doing about it  

EDF is working together with scientists, advocates and policymakers to better quantify, communicate and protect wetlands and the benefits they provide. Through cutting-edge science, economics and policy development, as well as partnerships across a wide spectrum of stakeholders, we are creating more public understanding of the benefits that wetlands provide. 

Take a closer look  

The U.S. government once recognized that wetlands connected to federal waterways, including those connected below the surface, should be protected under the Clean Water Act. But in 2023, a majority opinion by the Supreme Court drastically scaled back those federal protections in an opinion now stating that wetlands must have “a continuous surface connection” to federal waters. This language is not grounded in science and establishes tremendous uncertainty as to how this will be interpreted in the long term.  

An analysis from EDF, peer-reviewed and published in Science, estimates that between 17-90 million acres of wetlands could now be threatened (for reference, California is 100 million acres in size). The Supreme Court’s decision is compounded by the fact that many states have few or no state protections, with 24 states currently relying entirely on the federal wetlands protections determined by the Clean Water Act. In short, this means many of these wetlands may have no protection at all.