Freshwater

Freshwater in the Mediterranean basin is of huge economic, environmental and livelihood importance. However, with a growing population and an increasing number of tourists, the freshwater resources are under great pressure. Since the threatened status of plants and animals is one of the most widely used indicators for assessing the condition of ecosystems and their biodiversity, an assessment was undertaken for freshwater fish in this region.

Biodiversity within inland water ecosystems in Eastern Africa is highly diverse and of great importance to livelihoods and economies, however, development activities are not always compatible with the conservation of this diversity and it is poorly represented in the development planning process. One of the main reasons is the lack of readily available information on the status and distribution of inland water taxa.

The Vision for Water and Nature is the "environment and ecosystems" component of the World Water Vision exercise of the World Water Council. It represents the first meaningful attempt to fully integrate environment issues into the development of a comprehensive strategy for water resource management at the global level.

This compilation contains all key documents produced during the development of the Vision for Water and Nature, the environment and ecosystems componant of the Vision for Water, Life and the Environment for the 21st Century, generally known as the World Water Vision. Included are : the Vision itself, the discussion papers which served as the basis of each workshop and the workshop reports

This document provides information on inland waters and their biodiversity, and includes the first global assessment of areas of special importance for freshwater biodiversity, based on expert opinion and data. It also includes a first comparative analysis of major river basins, using indicators of biodiversity, the condition of catchment basins and pressures on water resources, in order to generate indices of importance and risk