What We Do
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is the principal federal agency tasked with providing information to the public on the status and trends of our nation's wetlands. Through the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI), we provide detailed information to the public on the abundance, characteristics, and distribution of American wetland and deepwater habitats, as well as changes in these habitats through time. This information is provided through two resources: the Wetland Geospatial Dataset and Wetlands Status and Trends reports.
Geospatial Dataset
The wetland geospatial dataset is a digital representation of the location, type, and extent of the nation’s wetland and deepwater habitats. The dataset supports an array of applications, including water quality modeling, infrastructure development planning, habitat suitability, waterfowl population modeling and more. The dataset is publicly available via the online Wetlands Mapper, a trusted resource that is visited more than half a million times annually. The Wetlands Mapper allows users to view, query, and print wetlands data. Data can also be downloaded or accessed through web mapping services. In addition, the Service has developed online tools and other resources aimed at supporting analysis of the geospatial dataset and provides technical expertise to users as needed.
Data are available for the conterminous United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the major Northern Mariana Islands, and more than 63 percent of Alaska. This has been accomplished by working with numbers of public and private cooperators. This effort constitutes the Wetlands Data Layer of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure and is National Geospatial Data Asset as identified by The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC).
Status and Trends
Wetlands Status and Trends reports comprise the mandated monitoring component of the NWI Program. These reports provide critical information on recent and historical changes in wetland and deepwater habitat type and acreage at both the national and regional levels.