Large areas of wetlands need to be created in the West Midlands in the next half century to protect wildlife, reduce the risk of flooding and store carbon, conservationists have urged.
The Wetland Vision Partnership said increasing pressure on land use and a changing climate meant wetlands need to be protected, restored and extended in the coming decades.
The partnership, an alliance of groups and agencies including the RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts, Natural England, Environment Agency and English Heritage, has drawn up maps illustrating the loss of wetlands in England.
The maps show where wetlands once were, the fragments which remain today and the potential opportunities for creating and restoring thousands of acres of reed beds, grazing marsh, ponds and wet grassland in the future.
The map which illustrates the future potential for creating and restoring wetlands to England includes areas in cities - where sites could be as simple as local ponds - to the recreation of wide expanses of fen.
Natural England, one of the partners in the project, is providing up to £2m a year over the next three years to target the creation and restoration of wetlands in areas such as the Meres and Mosses of West Midlands, the fens of South Lincolnshire, and the peatlands of the Humberhead levels.
According to the partnership, England has lost 90% of its wetlands in the past 1,000 years, mostly since the Industrial Revolution.
Draining land for farming, engineering rivers and taking water for homes and industry have all taken their toll on wetland habitats, but according to the conservationists, they are among the most useful as well as the most beautiful landscapes the country has.
The Pitt Review into last year's flooding recently recommended flood management which worked with nature to slow flood water and keep it away from urban areas.
Wetlands would play a key part in that process, and are also important for safeguarding biodiversity and archaeological heritage and tackling climate change through the storage of carbon in the soils.
