Scope

One of society’s great challenges is to balance the water needs for humans and nature. However, it is increasingly evident from recent global analyses that past approaches to water resource management have failed to address the threats to rivers and wetlands from human activities, and that the situation will worsen as demands for water, food and energy rise. These impacts are compounded by climate change, which is also affecting freshwater ecosystems in regions that are relatively unimpaired by human development. Science to underpin water resource management has struggled to keep pace with this challenge, in part because it has evolved along divergent paths: one focused primarily on human water security (e.g. safe supply, sanitation and hygiene, managing flood risk) and largely the realm of the engineering professions; the other more firmly grounded in the ecological sciences but increasingly drawing on the social sciences and economics to address the growing interest in quantifying ecosystem services. Sustainable management of freshwater ecosystems requires a stronger trans-disciplinary approach. The specialty section of Freshwater Science under Frontiers in Environmental Science aims to fill this niche. We welcome original submissions aimed at finding solutions to water quality and water quantity problems affecting rivers, lakes and wetlands (including groundwater-dependent surface water systems). We seek papers that improve our understanding of the causal links between human activities (including climate change) and freshwater ecosystem responses, and improve our capability to predict how systems will respond to future management interventions. We particularly encourage submissions that bring together biophysical scientists, engineers and/or social scientists to address complex water management problems. Our ultimate aim is to foster collaboration among water professionals and promote the science to underpin the Sustainable Development goals for freshwater.

Submission

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