The climate is changing at an unprecedented rate for decades and the modern lifestyle adds more fuel to it. The effects of the changing climate are widely seen with its impacts on all forms of ecosystems including terrestrial, aquatic as well as marine ecosystems. Climate-related risks and disasters are increasing recently at an alarming rate. The impacts of human-induced climate change on humans are critical throughout the world as the glaciers are receding, the ice sheets and icebergs are on the verge of extinction due to global climate change. The effect of melting of polar ice on biological diversity is alarming as the melting of ice due to global climate change affects algal production that results in the cascading effect in the arctic ecosystems. The cascading effect leads to habitat loss and the species like minke whales, polar bears, seals, walruses, and orcas live on the verge of extinction.
Climate change leads to an increase in the sea level, droughts, storms, floods, a decrease in productivity, coral bleaching, and many other detrimental and irreversible effects. The wetlands are the most productive ecosystems of the world. These wetlands are considered fundamental for human wellbeing and the needed environmental sustainability. The worldwide wetlands are very rich in biodiversity as around 40% of the whole world’s species live and propagate in these wetlands. The unconditional ecosystem services provided by wetlands are considered higher because the services provided are very hard to comprehend. The basic and necessary services provided by the productive wetlands include maintaining the water quality, source, and sink of greenhouse gases, soil sediment retention, livelihood, home to millions of migratory birds, and finally acts as the largest reservoir of carbon. These wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystems on earth.
Anthropogenic climate change is one of the main drivers of wetland extinctions and decline. The increasing climate change along with industrialization, urbanization, resource exploitation, and environmental pollution threatens wetlands across the world. Climate change severely affected services like water recharge and discharge, flood control, wildlife habitats, and nutrient storage functions and services. Climate change affects all the services of wetlands rendered to mankind.
The destruction of wetlands has accelerated rapidly. The world’s wetlands are unique ecosystems that may potentially generate large negative climate feedbacks over centuries to millennia and positive feedbacks over years to several centuries. The world Wetlands are among the major biogenic sources of methane, contributing to about 30% of the global methane total emissions, and are presumed to be a primary driver of inter annual variations in the atmospheric methane growth rate. While peatlands, the main subclass of wetland ecosystems, cover 3% of the Earth’s surface and are known to store large quantities of carbon and help to combat global climate change.
The worldwide wetlands have a great potential to preserve the carbon sequestration capacity due to water-logged conditions that reduce or inhibit microbial respiration and promote methane production. Wetlands provide life-sustaining services such as maintaining water quantity and quality, acting as a source and sink for greenhouse gases, retaining soils and sediments, providing livelihoods and food security, and supporting extensive biodiversity, among other things. The wetlands and climate change are interlinked, and their impacts are proportional to each other. The use of wetlands for carbon capture can eventually lead to conservation and restoration of wetlands.
Climate change may have its irreparable effect on wetlands through alterations in hydrological regimes like the nature and variability of the hydroperiod and the number and severity of extreme events. There are other variables related to climate that may play vital roles in determining the local and regional impacts, including increased temperature and changing evapotranspiration rates, biogeochemistry, disturbed patterns of suspended sediment loadings, reduction in productivity due to decrease in dissolved oxygen, and hypoxia-like conditions that are directly dependent on temperature.
The human-induced climate change altered the natural base flows, increased heat strokes, and disease vulnerability. Climate change has altered all the physical, chemical, and biological parameters of wetlands and pose a threat to all forms of life that are directly or indirectly dependent on these delicate and complex ecosystems. Climate change has already led to the extinction of many species and has put many new lives at stake. The wetlands are home to thousands of migratory birds and fishes and these wetlands generate employment to thousands of people who are dependent on them and if these wetlands are lost, we will directly lose the delicate and admiring migratory birds and other wildlife species, which will die due to habitat loss and fragmentation. Learn More..