Freshwater Biodiversity
Status, Threats and Conservation

Fresh waters are disproportionately rich in species, and represent global hotspots of biodiversity. However, they are also hotspots of endangerment.

David Dudgeon (Author)

9780521768030, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 May 2020

514 pages, 10 b/w illus. 25 colour illus. 14 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.8 cm, 0.96 kg

'In Freshwater Biodiversity, Dudgeon presents an impressive compilation of the status, threats, and prospects of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity that will be of great use for professionals or students interested in freshwater conservation … readers interested in the freshwater conservation crisis will find this volume a valuable resource.' Windsor E. Aguirre, The Quarterly Review of Biology

Growing human populations and higher demands for water impose increasing impacts and stresses upon freshwater biodiversity. Their combined effects have made these animals more endangered than their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Overuse and contamination of water, overexploitation and overfishing, introduction of alien species, and alteration of natural flow regimes have led to a 'great thinning' and declines in abundance of freshwater animals, a 'great shrinking' in body size with reductions in large species, and a 'great mixing' whereby the spread of introduced species has tended to homogenize previously dissimilar communities in different parts of the world. Climate change and warming temperatures will alter global water availability, and exacerbate the other threat factors. What conservation action is needed to halt or reverse these trends, and preserve freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? This book offers the tools and approaches that can be deployed to help conserve freshwater biodiversity.

Preface
1. The freshwater commons
2. Global endangerment of freshwater biodiversity
3. Overexploitation
4. Alien species and their effects
5. River regulation: impacts and mitigation
6. Vanishing lakes and threats to lacustrine biodiversity
7. How will climate change affect freshwater biodiversity?
8. Ecosystem services and incentivizing conservation of freshwater biodiversity
9. Conservation of freshwater biodiversity: opportunities and initiatives
Index.

Subject Areas: Conservation of the environment [RNK], Drought & water supply [RNFD], Environmental management [RNF], Marine & freshwater mammals [PSVW73], Freshwater biology [PSPF]