What do you think?
Rate this book
Wading Right In: Discovering the Nature of Wetlands
Where can you find mosses that change landscapes, salamanders with algae in their skin, and carnivorous plants containing whole ecosystems in their furled leaves? Where can you find swamp-trompers, wildlife watchers, marsh managers, and mud-mad scientists? In wetlands, those complex habitats that play such vital ecological roles.
In Wading Right In , Catherine Owen Koning and Sharon M. Ashworth take us on a journey into wetlands through stories from the people who wade in the muck. Traveling alongside scientists, explorers, and kids with waders and nets, the authors uncover the inextricably entwined relationships between the water flows, natural chemistry, soils, flora, and fauna of our floodplain forests, fens, bogs, marshes, and mires. Tales of mighty efforts to protect rare orchids, restore salt marshes, and preserve sedge meadows become portals through which we visit major wetland types and discover their secrets, while also learning critical ecological lessons.
The United States still loses wetlands at a rate of 13,800 acres per year. Such loss diminishes the water quality of our rivers and lakes, depletes our capacity for flood control, reduces our ability to mitigate climate change, and further impoverishes our biodiversity. Koning and Ashworth’s stories captivate the imagination and inspire the emotional and intellectual connections we need to commit to protecting these magical and mysterious places.
In Wading Right In , Catherine Owen Koning and Sharon M. Ashworth take us on a journey into wetlands through stories from the people who wade in the muck. Traveling alongside scientists, explorers, and kids with waders and nets, the authors uncover the inextricably entwined relationships between the water flows, natural chemistry, soils, flora, and fauna of our floodplain forests, fens, bogs, marshes, and mires. Tales of mighty efforts to protect rare orchids, restore salt marshes, and preserve sedge meadows become portals through which we visit major wetland types and discover their secrets, while also learning critical ecological lessons.
The United States still loses wetlands at a rate of 13,800 acres per year. Such loss diminishes the water quality of our rivers and lakes, depletes our capacity for flood control, reduces our ability to mitigate climate change, and further impoverishes our biodiversity. Koning and Ashworth’s stories captivate the imagination and inspire the emotional and intellectual connections we need to commit to protecting these magical and mysterious places.
- GenresNonfictionNatureScience
264 pages, Paperback
Published August 9, 2019
4 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 4, 2019
Have you ever been tempted to milk the anal glands of an anesthetized beaver? Or, have you ever been routed from your field research site by law enforcement officers perusing a criminal on the lam? Or, have you ever been approached by a palm-sized spider oaring toward you across a pond at three feet per second? Co-authors Catherine Owen Koning and Sharon Ashworth and their colleagues recount all of these incidents and many more in Wading Right In, their highly accessible and immensely enjoyable book about the “nature” of soggy landscapes in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States.
The authors acknowledge in their preface that the wetland literature is awash in textbooks, reference books, guidebooks, and philosophical treatises, but that the general public has few resources to consult for a good wetland read—a rich story that makes the reader laugh, wonder, and learn. Furthermore, they point out that recent studies demonstrate that people are more deeply moved by stories than statistics. Thus, their goal in writing this book was to make readers consider wetlands in a whole new way, to make an emotional connection with the creatures and habitats, and ultimately, to cherish and protect these places. Readers who know and love David M. Carroll’s acclaimed 2001 Burroughs Medal-winning Swampwalker’s Journal, a compelling and engrossing narrative about one man’s year-long search for turtles in New Hampshire swamps, should find themselves similarly enthralled by this book.
Don't dismiss this book out of hand as a “popular” introduction to wetlands aimed solely at the scientifically astute general public (although that audience will certainly appreciate it). The book is structured on a solid and thoroughly documented ecological framework onto which the authors have skillfully affixed personal experiences and anecdotes, astonishing revelations, and enough “gee whiz” facts to engage even experienced professionals, who may find themselves occasionally uttering involuntary exclamations of “Cool!” Despite my training as an aquatic ecologist and my four-decade career as a floodplain forest steward, I nevertheless learned a great deal from reading this book, much of it the result of recent research. For example, I had taught my ecological restoration students that all basins are temporary landscape features destined to be filled and become terrestrial ecosystems, but the book disabused me of this truism. Similarly, conventional wisdom held that, while it seemed logical that bald cypress knees could help deliver oxygen to the trees saturated and anoxic root zones, proof remained elusive until a group of researchers documented the knees’ importance for improving aeration in 2015.
The book consists of nine chapters organized by general wetland types, all of which are geographically wide-ranging throughout the United States and Canada (apart from salt marshes and tidal freshwater marshes, which of course are restricted to coastal areas). While the authors do not treat all wetlands (for example, they exempt geographically limited wetlands like Piedmont pocosins and Mississippi delta bayous), the ecological principles they present apply to these and every other type of wetland. The exploration begins in freshwater marshes, and then continues through wet meadows, beaver ponds, bogs and fens, wooded wetlands, vernal pools, and salt marshes. The authors then shift focus to consider the state of wetland restoration, and finally conclude with an examination of beauty, ethics and inspiration. Evocative black-and-white illustrations by co-author Catherine Koning introduce all but the last two chapters.
The chapter on wetlands engineered by beavers and the successional trajectories that these ecosystems can undergo is especially interesting. The information presented in this chapter perfectly supplements and amplifies Ben Goldfarb’s well-received 2019 book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, another account full of stories and anecdotes about wetland ecosystems.
The majority of the book is so well written that it is entrancing. The authors transport the reader into unfamiliar but captivating worlds as successfully as writers of good speculative fiction. It is arresting and unsettling, then, as the authors break the spell when they address salt marshes and wetland restoration. These two chapters, which are extremely important and as full of up-to-date information as the rest of the book, adopt a different, very practical and applied science tone. Readers alerted to this abrupt shift may be able to appreciate these chapters better if they anticipate the change. The final chapter returns to the original leitmotif, ending the book on just the right note.
Some of the information and ecological terms in the book are repeated fairly frequently. For general readers this repetition is probably valuable because it re-emphasizes important concepts. However, readers familiar with the concepts may find them a bit redundant. In addition, the authors occasionally resort to language that is a bit too cutesy or folksy: nesting cavities in trees become “hidey-holes,” pale aqua eggshells are described as “light-greeny-blue,” and “sprites, elves, gnomes and other-worldly folk” might be denizens of basin swamps. In general, though, the book is so good that such missteps are easily forgiven.
If you want to let yourself get lost on an armchair journey through exotic territory and, along the way, learn a great deal, develop a deeper appreciation for the natural world, and perhaps stumble upon the oldest hardwood tree in North America, pick up a copy of Wading Right In; you won’t be disappointed.
The authors acknowledge in their preface that the wetland literature is awash in textbooks, reference books, guidebooks, and philosophical treatises, but that the general public has few resources to consult for a good wetland read—a rich story that makes the reader laugh, wonder, and learn. Furthermore, they point out that recent studies demonstrate that people are more deeply moved by stories than statistics. Thus, their goal in writing this book was to make readers consider wetlands in a whole new way, to make an emotional connection with the creatures and habitats, and ultimately, to cherish and protect these places. Readers who know and love David M. Carroll’s acclaimed 2001 Burroughs Medal-winning Swampwalker’s Journal, a compelling and engrossing narrative about one man’s year-long search for turtles in New Hampshire swamps, should find themselves similarly enthralled by this book.
Don't dismiss this book out of hand as a “popular” introduction to wetlands aimed solely at the scientifically astute general public (although that audience will certainly appreciate it). The book is structured on a solid and thoroughly documented ecological framework onto which the authors have skillfully affixed personal experiences and anecdotes, astonishing revelations, and enough “gee whiz” facts to engage even experienced professionals, who may find themselves occasionally uttering involuntary exclamations of “Cool!” Despite my training as an aquatic ecologist and my four-decade career as a floodplain forest steward, I nevertheless learned a great deal from reading this book, much of it the result of recent research. For example, I had taught my ecological restoration students that all basins are temporary landscape features destined to be filled and become terrestrial ecosystems, but the book disabused me of this truism. Similarly, conventional wisdom held that, while it seemed logical that bald cypress knees could help deliver oxygen to the trees saturated and anoxic root zones, proof remained elusive until a group of researchers documented the knees’ importance for improving aeration in 2015.
The book consists of nine chapters organized by general wetland types, all of which are geographically wide-ranging throughout the United States and Canada (apart from salt marshes and tidal freshwater marshes, which of course are restricted to coastal areas). While the authors do not treat all wetlands (for example, they exempt geographically limited wetlands like Piedmont pocosins and Mississippi delta bayous), the ecological principles they present apply to these and every other type of wetland. The exploration begins in freshwater marshes, and then continues through wet meadows, beaver ponds, bogs and fens, wooded wetlands, vernal pools, and salt marshes. The authors then shift focus to consider the state of wetland restoration, and finally conclude with an examination of beauty, ethics and inspiration. Evocative black-and-white illustrations by co-author Catherine Koning introduce all but the last two chapters.
The chapter on wetlands engineered by beavers and the successional trajectories that these ecosystems can undergo is especially interesting. The information presented in this chapter perfectly supplements and amplifies Ben Goldfarb’s well-received 2019 book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, another account full of stories and anecdotes about wetland ecosystems.
The majority of the book is so well written that it is entrancing. The authors transport the reader into unfamiliar but captivating worlds as successfully as writers of good speculative fiction. It is arresting and unsettling, then, as the authors break the spell when they address salt marshes and wetland restoration. These two chapters, which are extremely important and as full of up-to-date information as the rest of the book, adopt a different, very practical and applied science tone. Readers alerted to this abrupt shift may be able to appreciate these chapters better if they anticipate the change. The final chapter returns to the original leitmotif, ending the book on just the right note.
Some of the information and ecological terms in the book are repeated fairly frequently. For general readers this repetition is probably valuable because it re-emphasizes important concepts. However, readers familiar with the concepts may find them a bit redundant. In addition, the authors occasionally resort to language that is a bit too cutesy or folksy: nesting cavities in trees become “hidey-holes,” pale aqua eggshells are described as “light-greeny-blue,” and “sprites, elves, gnomes and other-worldly folk” might be denizens of basin swamps. In general, though, the book is so good that such missteps are easily forgiven.
If you want to let yourself get lost on an armchair journey through exotic territory and, along the way, learn a great deal, develop a deeper appreciation for the natural world, and perhaps stumble upon the oldest hardwood tree in North America, pick up a copy of Wading Right In; you won’t be disappointed.
January 1, 2022
A great introduction to the beauty, wonder, and science of wetlands. I appreciated the literary epigraphs that framed each chapter—in some cases, it gave me more authors to look up and read!
My only ever so slight criticism is that I would have liked to see some pictures or illustrations of the some of the plants and animals described in the book. My knowledge of wetland flora and fauna is quite small, so some photographs would have helped me picture more of what the authors described. I also would have liked to learn a little bit more about the mangrove forests in the southern half of the United States. I know these forests are important wetland habitats, so I wish there would have been a little bit more information on them.
Overall, a great read for anyone interested in wetlands!
My only ever so slight criticism is that I would have liked to see some pictures or illustrations of the some of the plants and animals described in the book. My knowledge of wetland flora and fauna is quite small, so some photographs would have helped me picture more of what the authors described. I also would have liked to learn a little bit more about the mangrove forests in the southern half of the United States. I know these forests are important wetland habitats, so I wish there would have been a little bit more information on them.
Overall, a great read for anyone interested in wetlands!
August 3, 2022
Fantastic book on the different types of wetlands, each with its own chapter, and discusses processes, how they form, common animals and plants that are found in each. Mixes science and personal experience which I always enjoy. I think it could have benefited from photos but overall, it’s a great intro for learning about different types of wetlands, and is primarily applicable to the eastern U.S. It’s written in a way that anyone can enjoy— you don’t necessarily have to be a scientist or have a scientific background (I don’t).
January 5, 2026
“Humans are ethically bound and evolutionary inclined to care for all pieces of this planet, and we have faith that our hearts are big enough and our minds are sharp enough to rise to the tasks before us.”
August 31, 2021
An ever-more academically, scientifically, and environmentally relevant book that's also a passionate, well-written love letter to these special ecosystems.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews