Few words in the environmental lexicon create more confusion than “wetlands.”

What is a wetland? Where are they? Can wetlands be dry land? Who decides what land gets the designation and who has jurisdiction over them?

Here are some answers: Wetlands are a critical component of the Lowcountry’s landscape and environment. But they’re also disappearing. In some ways this vanishing is slow, as tidal marshes slip under rising seas before they can migrate further inland. They also disappear either under new developments or into them, as rising sea levels cause marshes to migrate inland and straight into coastal developments.

The state has lost about 27 percent of its wetlands, or about 1.75 million acres, since the middle of the eighteenth century. In the May River Watershed, which includes parts of the Town of Bluffton and Beaufort County, 2.7 percent, or 513 acres, of wetlands have been lost between 2001 and 2021.