Marsh

Synonyms / Other Terms Used

Marshland, Swamp, Wetland, Wetland Reserve, Wetlands Nature Reserve

Category

Nature, Natural Attractions, Tourism, Public Facilities, Management

Message / Function

For notice in general and to indicate the location of a wetland reserve

	Source	Description
	USGS	Pointed grass
	Luis Prado	Pointed grass above two wavy lines indicating water
	Iconathon	Pointed grass and reed above wavy line indicating water
	Knoxville Zoo	Pointed grass on elevated part of bent line, two zigzag lines on the right
	CNIS	Four sets of wavy lines, three with pointed grass
	ISO 7001	Pointed grass in three places, two sets of wavy lines
	Ecuador	Wavy line, pointed grass and reed below
	BS 8501:2002	Bird swimming in water shown as two wavy lines

Discussion

Pictograms found generally show a side view of pointed grass, sometimes in combination with reed, the typical plants found in wetland. Almost all variants include wavy lines indicating water and some repeat such elements several times. In contrast to the more general referent Nature Reserve, it seems that these elements could be a visual stereotype representing wetland, but no visual element in this collection represents the specific aspect of all nature reserves: the conservation or protection of an area. On the other hand it might be possible that this facet is an implicit feature of wetlands for the public already, therefore making a corresponding visual representation irrelevant. But one should keep in mind that just showing pointed grass, as in the variant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at the top of the table, might result in confusions with Lawn, for example. Yet it still may work as map symbol, where only very basic renderings with few elements can be used due to the small scale necessary.

In our research we did not discover any test data on comprehensibility of pictograms used to indicate the location of a wetland reserve.

Recommendations

As no data is available on comprehensibility of any of the pictograms available to indicate the location of a wetland reserve, we suggest to conduct a Comprehension Test for several representative graphical symbols shown above. Detailed information about the most frequent responses given in each of the response categories should be provided to correctly judge comprehensibility and improve designs.