The San Francisco Bay Area Network includes estuarine, palustrine, lacustrine, and riverine wetlands. The two coastal parks in the network, PORE and GOGA contain a combined 120 miles of coastline, with numerous small estuarine wetlands at the convergence of freshwater streams and the Pacific. In addition, these parks contain and border on some of the most pristine (Drakes Estero) and largest ( San Francisco Bay) estuaries on the west coast of North America. Palustrine wetlands are found within PORE, GOGA, PINN, PRES, and MUWO. These host rare and protected plants, and provide critical habitat for migratory birds. Natural lacustrine wetlands within the network are limited to several small ponds and lakes within GOGA and PORE, while riverine wetlands are found in all SFAN parks covered by this protocol.

Parks within the SFAN have made a concentrated effort to map and characterize wetlands on park lands using the Cowardin et al. (1979) classification. All of these mapped wetlands are classified by wetland type and plant community. Many of the mapped wetland polygons have also been characterized by complexity of biotic structure, dominant hydrology, function (e.g., flood retention, wildlife habitat), and major stressor (e.g. ,grazing, adjacent development, invasive species).