An ecosystem analysis includes consideration of four important components: carbon, one or more nutrients, water, and at least one forcing function. A modest investment of time and resources is necessary to document standing stocks of carbon, nutrients, and water. Determining turnover of these standing stocks by measuring rates of inflows and outflows is important, but requires more equipment and long monitoring periods. Interactions among these components must be analyzed; for instance, an ecosystem analysis generally includes determining the effect on carbon fixation and allocation of one or more of the other components.

   Constructing even a partial carbon budget often dominates an ecosystem analysis. Documenting above-ground plant and animal biomass, species composition and relative abundance, dead organic matter accumulation, above-ground net primary productivity, and decomposition rates are all standard procedures for any complete ecosystem analysis. Details of population dynamics of one or more species of both plants and animals are often also included. Net photosynthesis, respiration, and secondary productivity rates provide more insight into the way an ecosystem functions, but they are much more difficult to obtain.

   A hydrologic budget is particularly important to understanding a wetland because of the pervasive influence of reducing conditions that develop when hydroperiods are long, as well as the importance of water-borne nutrient and carbon fluxes. Surveying the basin of a wetland to determine size and depth is necessary to link stage to volume; groundwater inflows and outflows, as well as evapotranspiration, are often poorly documented in a hydrologic budget, making turnover times difficult to calculate.

   Constructing budgets of one or more nutrients (usually nitrogen and phosphorus) that affect carbon fixation and allocation requires extensive sampling in water, soil, and organic matter. The prevalence of reducing conditions in wetland soils makes transformations especially important. Uptake and leaching rates are essential for determining turnover times, but they are particularly difficult to measure.

   Annual cycles of solar radiation, precipitation, and temperature must be documented in an ecosystem analysis. Fire, drought, and hurricanes are less easily measured, but they can have important effects on many wetlands. Quantification of these effects may require either long monitoring or use of markers such as tree rings or soil cores.

   Clearly, a complete analysis that includes only the most straightforward studies outlined here can be extremely expensive, even for a simple ecosystem. Broad-scale pilot studies that address first-order interactions among these components may be necessary to formulate meaningful hypotheses that will then be used to focus the resources of a more intensive project on the most important questions.