Freshwater Life
Well preserved freshwater habitats deliver essential functions such as the provision of drinking water, the natural purification of pollutants, the buffering of floods, the protection against erosion and climate regulation across different landscape scales.
Healthy aquatic ecosystems are defined by their water quality and quantity, their connectivity, the habitat conditions and their animal and plant diversity.
Freshwater biodiversity has suffered an enormous decline. Since 1970, the populations of freshwater species have plunged an 84%.
Freshwater ecosystems are the habitat for more than 100.000 known species of fishes, mollusks, reptiles, insects, plants and mammals. Even though they occupy less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, they are home to a third of all vertebrates.
They are the Earth’s most threatened habitats, affected by fragmentation and destruction; invasive species; overfishing; pollution; forestry practices; hydraulic infrastructures; water extractions and climate change.
Wetlands have been reduced in more than 70% since 1900. Freshwater fishes are the vertebrates that have suffered the highest extinction rate during the 20th century
Since its foundation in 2014, Andrena has funded the restoration of 9 wetlands in Spain.
Resources
- A deep dive into freshwater. Living planet report 2020. WWF
- WWF. 2018. Living Planet Report – 2018: Aiming Higher. Grooten, M. and Almond, R.E.A.(Eds). WWF, Gland, Switzerland.
- Understanding of water resilience in the Anthropocene, Falkenmark, Erlandsson & Rockström, Journal of Hidrology X 2 (2019)
- Freshwater Information Platform. The network for freshwater research
- Informe sobre l’Estat i les Tendències del Medi Natural a Catalunya. ICHN, 2010
- The Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative
- Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (Biodiversity Information System for Europe)
- European Pond Conservation Network
- The Status and Distribution of Freshwater Fish Endemic to the Mediterranean Basin. IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme
