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Characteristics
Wetlands are standing water regions and include bogs, swamps and marshes. They have moist and humid conditions. Lakes and ponds range in breadths of a few to thousands of square meters. While lakes remain and exist for a very long time, numerous ponds exist for shorter periods. Scattered everywhere, rivers and streams flow in a single direction and are tributaries of larger bodies of water, such as lakes and springs.
Oceans make up the largest and most dominant aquatic landforms. Having warm to very cold temperature depending on region, they contain very little oxygen at their deepest depths. Where rivers and streams meet up with the oceans, estuaries are formed. Constituting barriers in warm shallow waters adjacent to continents, coral reefs form atolls and islands.
Biodiversity
The moist and humid conditions in wetlands are well adapted for plant species called hydrophytes, and animal species that include birds, amphibians and reptiles. Some salt marshes support species of bivalve mollusks (shellfish), crustaceans (shrimp) and grasses. Isolation from major water sources and from one another allows lakes and ponds to support few plant and animal species. Varied oxygen levels in rivers and streams support several chlorophyll-bearing aquatic flora and fish, and less phototrophic plants and animals survive near the source.
Oceans are characterized by their wide biodiversity, while corals reefs are characterized by limited flora and fauna species which can survive under the nutrient-deprived conditions of the reefs. The presence of both fresh and salt water in estuaries enables them to support a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Formation
Natural geologic processes in the past have formed lakes: tectonic movements, glacial activity or volcanic processes. Wetlands form due to saturation of once-dry areas due to river overflows and glacier activity. Rivers and streams form from rainwater runoff and consequent erosion leading to earth exudation and channel merging.
Precipitation from volcanic eruptions amassed large amounts of water vapor and other gases to become oceans. Coral reefs are formed from reef-building marine organisms that attach to coastal lines and along continental shelves. Tectonic and glacial processes, sea runoffs and sand and sandbar movements produce estuaries.
Number
The earth has around 152 major aquatic landforms, which include seas, oceans, rivers and lakes. Twenty-two major world cities are established in estuaries. Constant topographical alterations have created innumerable wetlands, streams and ponds.