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Extensive global wetland loss over the past three centuries

Nature volume 614, pages 281–286 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Wetlands have long been drained for human use, thereby strongly affecting greenhouse gas fluxes, flood control, nutrient cycling and biodiversity1,2. Nevertheless, the global extent of natural wetland loss remains remarkably uncertain3. Here, we reconstruct the spatial distribution and timing of wetland loss through conversion to seven human land uses between 1700 and 2020, by combining national and subnational records of drainage and conversion with land-use maps and simulated wetland extents. We estimate that 3.4 million km2 (confidence interval 2.9–3.8) of inland wetlands have been lost since 1700, primarily for conversion to croplands. This net loss of 21% (confidence interval 16–23%) of global wetland area is lower than that suggested previously by extrapolations of data disproportionately from high-loss regions. Wetland loss has been concentrated in Europe, the United States and China, and rapidly expanded during the mid-twentieth century. Our reconstruction elucidates the timing and land-use drivers of global wetland losses, providing an improved historical baseline to guide assessment of wetland loss impact on Earth system processes, conservation planning to protect remaining wetlands and prioritization of sites for wetland restoration4.

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Fig. 1: Reconstructed extent of drained, lost or converted wetlands between 1700 and 2020 globally.
Fig. 2: Heterogeneous wetland loss across countries, peatland regions and river basins of the world.
Fig. 3: Regional estimates of wetland loss to calibrate our reconstruction.
Fig. 4: Global wetland loss estimates from the literature and our study diverge markedly, with our reconstructed losses being lower than most previous estimates.

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Data availability

Data for national and subnational statistics of drained or converted areas, regional wetland percentage loss estimates, and gridded reconstruction of drained area per land use and cumulative—as well as natural wetland area—are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7293597.

Code availability

The scripts used to process input data, model and calibrate the wetland loss reconstruction, and produce the figures are publicly available at https://github.com/etiennefluetchouinard/wetland-loss-reconstruction.

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Acknowledgements

Funding for this work was provided by a postgraduate scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (no. PGSD2-471651-2015), the David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and National Science Foundation (grant no. DEB-1115025), a DAAD visit to Bonn Universität and by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant no. GBMF5439 (Advancing Understanding of the Global Methane Cycle) to Stanford University supporting the Methane Budget activity for the Global Carbon Project. B.D.S. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. PCEFP2_181115).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Etienne Fluet-Chouinard

    Present address: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, Avni Malhotra, Gustaf Hugelius, Alison M. Hoyt & Robert B. Jackson

  2. Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Etienne Fluet-Chouinard & Peter B. McIntyre

  3. Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Benjamin D. Stocker

  4. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Benjamin D. Stocker

  5. Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Benjamin D. Stocker

  6. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Benjamin D. Stocker

  7. Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Zhen Zhang

  8. Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Joe R. Melton

  9. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Benjamin Poulter

  10. Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Jed O. Kaplan

  11. Faculty of Geosciences, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Kees Klein Goldewijk

  12. Department of Crop Sciences, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goettingen, Germany

    Stefan Siebert

  13. Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Stefan Siebert

  14. Care for Ecosystems, Goerlitz, Germany

    Tatiana Minayeva

  15. Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gustaf Hugelius

  16. Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Gustaf Hugelius

  17. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Peatland Studies and Paleoecology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Hans Joosten & Alexandra Barthelmes

  18. Greifswald Mire Centre, Greifswald, Germany

    Hans Joosten & Alexandra Barthelmes

  19. Sorbonne Université, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, LERMA, Paris, France

    Catherine Prigent & Filipe Aires

  20. Estellus, Paris, France

    Catherine Prigent & Filipe Aires

  21. Nick Davidson Environmental, Queens House, Wigmore, UK

    Nick Davidson

  22. Gulbali Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, Albury, New South Wales, Australia

    Nick Davidson & C. Max Finlayson

  23. IHE Delft, Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands

    C. Max Finlayson

  24. Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Bernhard Lehner

  25. Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Robert B. Jackson

  26. Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Peter B. McIntyre

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Contributions

E.F.-C. conceived and designed the study, with input from J.R.M., B.D.S., A.M., Z.Z., B.P., P.B.M. and R.B.J. E.F.-C., S.S. and T.M. compiled drainage data. Wetland area data were provided by Z.Z., B.D.S., J.R.M. and B.L. Land-use data were provided by K.K.G. E.F.-C. developed the model calibration, with advice from B.D.S., J.M. and Z.Z. E.F.-C. wrote the manuscript with input from P.B.M., and all authors edited the final version.

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Correspondence to Etienne Fluet-Chouinard.

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Fluet-Chouinard, E., Stocker, B.D., Zhang, Z. et al. Extensive global wetland loss over the past three centuries. Nature 614, 281–286 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05572-6

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