Current protected areas provide limited benefits for European river biodiversity
Protected areas are a principal conservation tool for addressing biodiversity loss. Such protection is especially needed in freshwaters, given their greater biodiversity losses compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, broad-scale evaluations of protected area effectiveness for freshwa...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/411823 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/411823 https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/105025171419 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | European river biodiversity Biodiversity loss http://metadata.un.org/sdg/11 http://metadata.un.org/sdg/9 http://metadata.un.org/sdg/13 http://metadata.un.org/sdg/6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts |
| Sumario: | Protected areas are a principal conservation tool for addressing biodiversity loss. Such protection is especially needed in freshwaters, given their greater biodiversity losses compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, broad-scale evaluations of protected area effectiveness for freshwater biodiversity are lacking. Here, we provide a continental-scale analysis of the relationship between protected areas and freshwater biodiversity using 1,754 river invertebrate community time series sampled between 1986 and 2022 across ten European countries. Protected areas primarily benefited poor-quality communities (indicative of higher human impacts) that were protected, or that gained protection, across a substantial proportion of their upstream catchment. Protection had little to no influence on moderate- and high-quality communities, although high-quality communities potentially provide less scope for effect. Our results reveal the overall limited effectiveness of current protected areas for freshwater biodiversity, likely because they are typically designed and managed to achieve terrestrial conservation goals. Broadly improving effectiveness for freshwater biodiversity requires catchment-scale management approaches involving larger and more continuous upstream protection, and efforts to address remaining stressors. These approaches would also benefit connected terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, thus generally helping bend the curve of global biodiversity loss. |
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