Most people have some sense of the value and/or limits of having a wetland on their property, but it’s not always easy to explain why wetlands have value or where the line is between wetland and upland.

The key words are water, soil, and vegetation. A simple way to define it is that wetlands are areas that are wet enough—long enough and often enough—to support plants that thrive in wet soils. How wet that actually is can be very different from wetland to wetland, and what the soils and vegetation look like as a result can also vary a lot.