Benefits
Dam building can be very beneficial in restoring wetlands. Such wetland benefits include flood control downstream, biodiversity (by providing habitat for many rare as well as common species), and water cleansing, both by the breakdown of toxins such as pesticides and the retention of silt by beaver dams. Over the eons, this collection of silt produces the rich bottom land so sought after by farmers. Beaver dams reduce erosion as well as decrease the turbidity that is a limiting factor for much aquatic life. While beavers can create damage, part of the problem is one of perception and time scale. Such damage as the undermining of a roadway or the drowning of some trees is very visible shortly after the beginning of beavers activity in an area. The benefits may be long-term and unnoticed except, for example, by someone monitoring a catchment.
Read more about this topic: Beaver Dam
Famous quotes containing the word benefits:
“When your parents are in political life, you aren’t normal. Everybody talks about the benefits, but I don’t know what the benefits are.... But I’d rather have that kind of mother than an overweight housewife.”
—Katherine Berman Mariano (b. 1957)
“While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,
Swarm over their lives enforcing benefits ...”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)