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Global warming clouds our future. Pollution degrades our air, soil and water. Environmental toxins compromise the health of our children. Misuse threatens the sustainability of our forests, fisheries, wetlands and coasts, and the health of species that live there.

But there is reason for hope.

Through sound science and policy research, we're finding answers to these problems. Airborne lead and acid rain have been dramatically reduced. Industrial water pollution has decreased. Habitats are being preserved.

Faculty members from the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University are part of the effort to help find these answers and establish new environmental practices and policies to safeguard our natural resources for generations to come.

To contact our experts or learn more about what we're doing in states across the nation, click on the state you're interested in.

Oklahoma
Wetlands
Wetlands cover about 950,000 acres, or two percent, of Oklahoma, including bottomland hardwood forests and swamps; marshes and wet meadows; and sparsely vegetated wetlands such as playa lakes – small, shallow depressions that intermittently fill with rain and its associated runoff. Most forested wetlands are in eastern Oklahoma, where precipitation is highest and evaporation lowest. Riparian wetlands and playa lakes in drier western Oklahoma are especially valuable to wildlife. Nearly two-thirds of Oklahoma's original wetlands have been lost as a result of agricultural conversions, impoundment, stream flow regulation, the channelization of naturally meandering waterways, and other causes.

 

 

Contact Information

James Pahl is an expert on wetland ecology and estuarine plants. He has conducted extensive field studies on restored wetland and riparian ecosystems.
 tel:(919) 613-8007 : e: jimpahl@duke.edu