Freshwater covers a tiny area of the planet’s surface, but is vital for our economies, environment, and, of course, our survival. Yet freshwater is also among the most threatened ecosystems, where wildlife has declined faster than in the oceans or on land.
Faced with a barrage of human threats, how can we help our waterways? Our research, published in Biological Conservation, looks at the cheapest, most effective ways to restore our rivers.
After all, we all live downstream.
Water Is Life
According to the United Nations, more than 40 percent of the global workforce is heavily dependent on freshwater. There are strong links between water and jobs across all sectors of the economy—agriculture, fisheries and forestry, energy, manufacturing, and transport.
All ecosystems are connected by water. As a result freshwater is worth trillions of dollars to our economy through various ecosystem services. These include power generation, food and medicine production, flood buffering, and recreation and tourism.
People in the United States alone spend $24 billion to $37 billion each year on tourism activities related to recreational fishing. Likewise, in Australia, freshwater recreation is worth billions of dollars to the economy.
Freshwater Biodiversity Loss
The role of healthy freshwater ecosystems in sustaining wildlife is less celebrated.
Freshwaters cover only about 0.5 percent of the earth’s surface, but are home to nearly 10 percent of all known species, including a third of all vertebrates.
Despite this abundance of biodiversity, freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened on Earth. According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Index, freshwater fish, birds, mammals, and reptiles and amphibians have declined by a whopping three-quarters over the last 40 years. This is significantly more than the declines in ocean and land wildlife.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List reveals that 35 percent of freshwater amphibians are threatened or extinct, 46 percent of mammals, and 38 percent of turtles.
