The majority of aquatic habitat projects undertaken in the real world are restorations designed to help improve and stabilize existing aquatic habitats. However, some situations call for building entirely new habitats from scratch to replace wetlands or ponds that were completely removed. This is common when rewilding or restoration projects call for reversing development and rebuilding a former natural water feature. Removing dams can restore existing waterways and habitats, but it also tends to create new water features that need careful management to work well with the surrounding environment. Most new aquatic habitat construction may look like just everyday construction of ponds, lakes, creeks, and streams. Yet, these water features must include far more complexity and extra equipment than your average recreation pond or lake. When taking on the challenge of a new public or private aquatic habitat project, there’s plenty to consider so that the habitat that fits into the rest of nature.
Why Do Aquatic Habitats Matter So Much?
The widespread loss of healthy aquatic habitats, and the degradation of the existing ecosystems, have effects that stretch far beyond just threats to the species that occupy them. When a wetland is lost to development or drought, the entire area loses a valuable water processing system and a rich source of nutrients to refresh surrounding soils. Ponds that are dredged and filled in can’t hold the storm runoff they once collected, causing it to flood the surface instead. Aquatic habitats can’t be replaced with completely sterile features like retention basins either. In order to best support healthy life that enriches the entire ecosystem, it’s necessary to maintain or replace many aquatic habitats after they’re impacted by development or climate change. While conservation can sometimes take a hands-off approach, degraded aquatic habitats need to be handled more proactively. Without appropriate habitats along rivers and coastlines, issues occur like:
- Pollution accumulation and extra runoff due to the lack of buffering and bacteria to process the nutrients
- Sedimentation of bays and small waterways heading to coastal areas, leading to widespread flooding when these channels can no longer direct water to its destination
- Loss of nutrient exchanges that feed coral reefs and other ocean life, causing die-offs that are hard to reverse
- Greater storm damage due to the loss of plant-anchored barrier islands and reef areas that help slow down fast moving wind and water during hurricanes and typhoons.
Reconnecting Existing Water Features
The majority of new aquatic habitat projects today are designed to connect or expand existing water features. It’s rare to find a project designed to introduce a completely new and isolated habitat based on water, since almost all water features are interconnected in some way. Building new creeks, streams, ponds, and other waterways can help reunite isolated water features that are suffering from a lack of incoming or outgoing flow. Without a fresh supply of water, existing lakes and ponds can suffer from nutrient and waste build-up. Outgoing drainage areas also help encouraging better circulation and turnover. Aside from improving the general quality of the entire ecosystem, these connecting habitats also serve as wildlife and plant life corridors. Fish and other aquatic life, from snails to mussels, can move more freely through the various bodies of water, restoring better stocks of all species across the interconnected waterways. These interconnecting features often benefit from reinforcement with a durable polymer liner to control water loss, prevent erosion, and help them better blend into the natural landscape.
Mitigating the Impact of Development
Aside from reconnecting existing habitats and waterways, new aquatic habitats are often built as an exchange for disturbing or removing existing natural ecosystems. These replacements must be designed with extra care since they must replicate the missing habitat as closely as possible. When it’s not possible to leave an existing pond or creek where it is today, relocating it or constructing a replacement can help the aquatic life shift to a new ecosystem. Yet, since these replacement features are often built close to the new development displacing the original, the waterways must be both protected from runoff and designed to avoid threatening the nearby structures. Lining these artificial aquatic habitats can accomplish both of these goals at once by controlling runoff and preventing leaks and flooding. When building habitats around sensitive infrastructure projects like airports, harbors, and highways, it’s essential to ensure that wetlands or ponds can’t release their water and destabilize the nearby soil.
Where are New Aquatic Habitats Usually Built?
The biggest and most widely publicized aquatic habitat projects tend to be focused around places of former or current development. Major infrastructure construction tends to involve a lot of habitat replacement and restoration, including aquatic projects. Yet, new roadways and airports aren’t the only types of construction work to require the addition of new ponds and creeks. Many homeowners end up undertaking small scale aquatic habitat replacement projects after having to disturb a native wetland or creek with home construction. Some states are even beginning to require individual home and business owners to take on these kinds of projects where once they were only required on a much larger local scale.
Building new aquatic habitats is far more complex than restoring existing ones, due to the expanded potential for impact on the surrounding environment. Yet these habitats are often essential to rebuild or replace to maintain large scale flooding controls and soil health systems. Don’t let the complexity of trying to plan and build a whole new habitat stop you from taking on the challenge. Fish-safe and plant-safe liner materials from BTL Liners go a long way in solving design and implementation challenges for permanent aquatic habitat projects.
