Nature + Humans = Smart Wetlands
The Wetlands Initiative (TWI) is an Illinois 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that began regular operations in 1995. TWI's mission is to design, restore and create wetlands. TWI envisions a world with plentiful healthy wetlands improving water quality, climate, biodiversity, and human well-being.
The Smart Wetlands, a program of TWI, works with farmers and cropland owners to reduce the flow of fertilizer from farm fields into local waterways by installing constructed wetlands. These wetlands are precisely placed along ditches or small streams on a farm. They intercept and remove nutrients through a combination of physical, biological, and chemical processes—in the case of nitrogen, transforming it into a harmless gas.
The goal of this project is to combine human resources with the natural world to create a highly effective system of nutrient removal. The team does this by using the social-ecological systems (SES) approach. This concept asserts that social (human) and ecological systems cannot be viewed separately from each other. The actions in one system are impacted by actions in the other. Therefore, our team members have expertise and experience in a variety of fields.
The Smart Wetland staff are just a small fraction of the Smart Wetlands program’s human component. Our farmers and landowners, project partners, and funders, the Smart Wetland program would not be possible.
Meet the SMART Wetlands
We call our wetlands Smart because they are specifically sited, designed, and constructed to improve water quality using the best available data and technology. The wetlands process ag-tile drainage water that contains fertilizers from nearby cropland.
As water moves through a Smart Wetland (SW), naturally occurring processes capture, break down and transform excess nutrients (nitrate and phosphorous) from the tile water. The result is cleaner water leaving the farm field with fewer pollutants flowing into our Illinois waterbodies and eventually the Mississippi River. The Wetlands Initiative has taken on this work in support of the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy.
The SW Team is already making plans to build more Illinois tile-treatment wetlands in 2022. If COVID no longer poses a serious threat by summer, we will be hosting two events where visitors will be able to see a Smart Wetland up close.
Our Smart Wetlands are in place thanks to our farmer partners, funders, local soil and water conservation district staff and board members, as well as Illinois USDA Farm Services Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service staff. While all these people work hard to help us construct and manage Smart Wetlands, the hardest working team members are the Smart Wetlands.
Finally, this is just the first of a series of blog posts sharing the stories about the people and science behind our Smart Wetlands. So bookmark this webpage and check back every couple of weeks for more stories, photos, and videos.