Ecologically, the expansion of drainage systems has had tremendous negative effects. Hundreds of thousands of wetland species experienced significant population declines as their habitat was increasingly fragmented and destroyed. Although market hunting within the Central Flyway was a contributing factor in the decline of many waterfowl species' numbers in the early decades of the twentieth century, loss of breeding habitat to agricultural expansion is certainly the most significant. Early maps of midwestern states depict many lakes and marshes that are either nonexistent or significantly reduced in area today. Channelization, a related process of concentrating and facilitating the flow of water from agricultural areas, also contributed to this degradation.
The Vista Corporation has decided that it needs to expand it's drainage systems to provide for its ever expanding campus. They have a couple of options to route the piping through, the most feasible being a wetlands area to the east, and an empty field to the west. City planners have given them the okay for either, but Vista Corporation is trying to explore which decision will have the least ecological impact on the area, as damaging the environment may have bad PR results for them.
Will the drainage expansion in the the wetlands area have a better or worse ecological impact than the expansion to the empty field?