Safeguarding Freshwater Ecosystems

1
Safeguarding Freshwater Ecosystems

• Chapter 3

2
Freshwater Ecosystem

• Earths hydrological system is a huge asset that
  is being destroyed by human actions.
• Rivers, lakes , and other freshwater sources work
  with forests, grasslands, and other landscapes to
  provide goods and services of great importance to
  human society.
• More than 90 of the worlds irrigation,
  industrial, and household water supplies comes
  from rivers, lakes, and aquifers.
• Healthy rivers are vital for all life.

3
Assessing the Damage

• Overstressed and deteriorating ecosystems take
  many forms such as disappearing species,
  decimated fish populations, falling water tables,
  altered river flows, shrinking lakes, diminishing
  wetlands, declining water quality, and pollution
  introduced dead zones.
• All of these are getting worse.
• The redirection of rivers causes the shrinkage of
  seas.
• The spawning habitats for fish and shrimp are
  shrinking causing a decline in the fish and
  shrimp.

4
Healthy Watersheds for Safe Drinking Water

• Forests and wetlands are natures way of providing
  high-quality water at a lower cost.
• Many cities have begun protecting their
  watersheds, rather than building expensive water
  filtration systems.
• Watersheds are more efficient.
• Urban cities waste 20-50 of their usable water
  in leaks.
• Cities who have saved their watersheds and
  avoided building water purification systems, have
  saved their people millions of dollars.

5
Food Security with Ecosystem Security

• Already as much as 10 of global food production
  depends on the over pumping of ground water and
  closer to 25 in India.
• The hydrological deficits create a bubble in food
  economy and is bound to burst.
• Where will the additional water come from to
  support the growth of future food production?
• Expected growth of 1.7 billion diets by 2030
• The production of rice is key to help maintain
  balance.
• Rice farmers can use much less water than
  currently used and still obtain large yields.

6
Reducing Risks, Preserving Resilience

• Natural disasters may not be natural after all.
• The depletion of wetlands and the clearing of
  trees greatly reduces the buffer from many of
  these storms.
• Storms, floods, earthquakes, and tidal waves are
  natural events, but the degree to which they
  produce disastrous outcomes is now often strongly
  influenced by human actions.
• By investing in watersheds, wetlands, and
  floodplains, many countries are helping their
  cause against these devastating occurrences.

7
Bringing Water Policies into the Twenty-first
Century

• Signs of water scarcity and ecosystem disruption
  are pervasive and spreading, yet policies
  continue to promote inefficient, unproductive,
  and ecologically harmful practices.
• These realities show the need for an overhaul of
  water policies.
• South Africa leads the way in water management.
• Water allocation plan to meet basic needs.
• Water allocation plan to support ecosystem
  functions.
• Many countries have followed South Africas lead.
• Leadership, commitment, and citizen involvement
  are the driving forces behind many of the most
  innovative and successful water and policy
  reforms.