Freshwater ecoregions of the world

Want to learn more about freshwater ecoregions? The World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy have just launched a great new site called Freshwater Ecoregions of the World that will allow you to learn all about freshwater resources:

Freshwater species and habitats are, on average around the world, more imperiled than their terrestrial counterparts. Yet, large-scale conservation planning efforts have rarely targeted freshwater biodiversity. This inattention is due in part to the fact that, compared to better-studied terrestrial taxa, there has been a severe lack of comprehensive, synthesized data on the distributions of freshwater species. Existing worldwide species-level data have covered only the largest river basins or select hotspots, rather than all inland waters. Additionally, these data syntheses have made little attempt to describe biogeographic patterns.

Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (FEOW) is a collaborative project providing the first global biogeographic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity, and synthesizing biodiversity and threat data for the resulting ecoregions. We define a freshwater ecoregion as a large area encompassing one or more freshwater systems that contains a distinct assemblage of natural freshwater communities and species. The freshwater species, dynamics, and environmental conditions within a given ecoregion are more similar to each other than to those of surrounding ecoregions and together form a conservation unit.

Did you know that those of us who live near the Flint River in northern Alabama and southern Tennessee are right in the middle of one of the hotspots for aquatic biodiversity? The rivers and streams here have some of the highest biodiversity in the world. Get involved in a river conservation group near you to help protect these unique resources.