**Introduction**

Finally,

VIII Preface

I offer special thanks to Author Service Managers Romina Skomeršić, Irina Štefanić,

**Dr. Didem Gokce** Department of Biology Faculty of Science and Letters

> Inonu University Malatya, Turkey

Kristina Jurdana, and Anja Filipović for their help in publishing the book in its present form. I am also grateful for IntechOpen Publishers for their concern, efforts, and encouragement.

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**Introductory Chapter: Wetland Importance and**

**Introductory Chapter: Wetland Importance** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.82456

Water is an important resource for all living beings. Therefore, the use of water and its supply from sources are very important. Wetlands are an ecosystem from mangrove to subarctic peatlands that have affected human. The earliest civilizations were established near the river, lake, and floodplains [1]. The Mesopotamian civilization is authoritatively accepted to have started around 4000–3500 BC between the Euphrates and Tigris River. The other ancestral civilization, Egypt, commenced in the Nile Valley at around 3200 BC. This represents the importance of the water and wetlands. The fact that people are in these regions is a reflection of how important it is for biotic diversity. Therefore, wetlands are a very critical ecosystem,

Wetlands occur where the water table is at or near the surface of the land or where the land is covered by water [2]. Wetlands are the only ecosystems for whose conservation an international convention (Ramsar Convention) had been adopted as early as 1971. Ramsar Convention defined wetlands as "areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six meters" [2]. Wetlands have about 6% of the earth although they play an important role in hydrology and include mangroves, peatlands and marshes, rivers and lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, and even coral reefs. A wetland is a generalized concept including coastal wetlands. It

Many wetlands are transitional area between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. These ecosystems are divided into two groups depending on the quantity of water: permanent and temporal flooded. Since wetlands are distributed in many different habitats on earth, they

exists in every climatic region, ranging from the polar zones to the arid zones.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

and some of them are the most productive habitats.

Didem GokceAdditional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82456

**Management**

**and Management**

Didem Gokce

**1. Introduction**

#### **Introductory Chapter: Wetland Importance and Management Introductory Chapter: Wetland Importance and Management**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.82456
