We live on a blue planet. Yet freshwater makes up only 3 % of all water on earth, 2 % of which is locked up in snow and ice, leaving just 1 % for all of us to use. The availability of clean freshwater is vital for life, humans and nature alike. UNEP estimates, however, that by 2025 two out of three people will live in water stressed areas. Yet other parts of the world will be subject to increased flood risks. Nature in rivers, lakes and wetlands is equally dependent on ample, clean freshwater. Changes in the global water cycle instigated by changes in precipitation snow and ice-melt, which are part of global changes in climate, will enhance the uncertainty in the availability of freshwater in the (near) future. Moreover, freshwater systems are under extreme pressure from modification, over-exploitation, eutrophication and pollution. This is a threat to the extraordinary level of biodiversity these systems maintain. Other important services freshwater systems provide are the provision of drinking water, irrigation, fisheries and recreation. These services can only be maintained if the freshwater ecosystems maintain their resilience under stress. The functioning and resilience of ecosystems is strongly dependent on the level of biodiversity. What emerges is that various global crises – loss of biodiversity, climate change and water scarcity – interact and may strengthen each other. All of this requires much better governance of the increasingly limited water supplies as well as proper management of water quantity, quality and aquatic biodiversity. For this freshwater sciences are indispensable. It has been 100 years since François Alphonse Forel passed away. Forel, the founder of Limnology, lived and worked in the Lake Geneva area and published his major work on this lake “Le Leman” between 1892 and 1902. One could say that by hosting SEFS in Geneva in 2015 freshwater sciences are coming home. A time to commemorate more than a century of freshwater studies, but above all a time to look ahead, since in the 21st century freshwater sciences are needed more than ever before. ... [Information of the supplier]
