Geography
The three large lakes, Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne cover 55% of the Pontchartrain Basin. Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain are separated by land bridges of cypress swamp and fresh/intermediate marsh. A brackish marsh land bridge and Lake St. Catherine separate Lake Pontchartrain from Lake Borgne. The Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass are the two open water connections between Pontchartrain and Borgne.
Due to coastal erosion Borgne is now a lagoon connecting to the Gulf of Mexico, but early 18th century maps show it as a lake largely separated from the Gulf by a considerable extent of wetlands which have since disappeared.
The basin contains 483,390 acres (1956 km²) of wetlands, consisting of nearly 38,500 acres (156 km²) of fresh marsh, 28,600 acres (116 km²) of intermediate marsh, 116,800 acres (473 km²) of brackish marsh, 83,900 acres (340 km²) of saline marsh, and 215,600 acres (873 km²) of cypress swamp. Since 1932, more than 66,000 acres (267 km²) of marsh have converted to water in the Pontchartrain Basin — over 22% of the marsh that existed in 1932.
The primary causes of wetland loss in the basin are the interrelated effects of human activities and the estuarine processes that began to predominate many hundreds of years ago, as the delta was abandoned.
Read more about this topic: Lake Borgne
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