ConserveOnline - Sustaining Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems

Sustaining Healthy Freshwater Ecosystems

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Fresh water is vital to human life and economic well-being, and societies extract vast quantities of water from rivers, lakes, wetlands, and underground aquifers to supply the requirements of cities, farms, and industries. Our need for fresh water has long caused us to overlook equally vital benefits of water that remains in stream to sustain healthy aquatic ecosystems. There is growing recognition, however, that functionally intact and biologically complex freshwater ecosystems provide many economically valuable commodities and services to society. These services include flood control, transportation, recreation, purification of human and industrial wastes, habitat for plants and animals, and production of fish and other foods and marketable goods. Over the long term, intact ecosystems are more likely to retain the adaptive capacity to sustain production of these goods and services in the face of future environmental disruptions such as climate change. These ecosystem benefits

CREATION DATE	August 1, 2008
LAST MODIFIED	August 1, 2008
CREATED BY	diedre paterno pai
AUTHOR(S)	baron, Jill; Poff, LeRoy; Dahm, Clifford; Gleick, Peter; Hairston, Nelson; Jackson, Robert; Johnston, Carol; Steinman, Alan
KEYWORDS	freshwater; sustainable freshwater ecosystems; human well being
DOCUMENT PURPOSE	Publications
LICENSE	Attribution Non-Commercial