Ciénegas

A ciénega is a wetland system unique to the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. Ciénegas are alkaline, freshwater, spongy, wet meadows with shallow-gradient, permanently saturated soils in otherwise arid landscapes that often occupy nearly the entire widths of valley bottoms. That description satisfies historic, pre-damaged ciénegas, although few can be described that way anymore and incised ciénegas have become common. Ciénegas are usually associated with seeps or springs, found in canyon headwaters or along margins of streams. ciénegas often occur because the geomorphology forces water to the surface, over large areas, not merely through a single pool or channel. In a healthy ciénega, water slowly migrates through long, wide-scale mats of thick, sponge-like wetland sod. ciénega soils are squishy, permanently saturated, highly organic, black in color or anaerobic. Highly adapted sedges, rushes and reeds are the dominant plants, with succession plants—Goodding's willow, Fremont cottonwoods and scattered Arizona walnuts—found on drier margins, down-valley in healthy ciénegas where water goes underground or along the banks of incised ciénegas.

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