The ecosystem services concept in freshwater conservation and restoration

Abstract

Abstract Intense efforts have focused on ecosystem conservation and restoration (ECR) over the past decades, promoting considerable advances in science and practice in this field. However, the applications of the ecosystem services (ESs) concept are rarely considered in the literature when assessing the success and targets of ECR. The ECR literature was systematically reviewed to analyse the relevance of the ES concept in ECR research published from 2007 to 2019 and to assess how the ES concept is integrated into freshwater ECR. In general, the number of publications focusing on ECR and ESs shows a temporal increase (from 12 to 101 publications, 685 in total). The proportion of publications considering ESs as freshwater ECR targets increased from 33 to 70% until 2019, while the proportion of publications that prioritized ecosystem processes and functions as the target declined from 33 to 16%. Despite the clear upward trend, most studies have focused only on the conceptual framework. In addition, the idea of using market‐based approaches for ESs has spread quickly, but it has still not been broadly accepted. The number of academic researchers who have contributed to this research field varies substantially across different countries. A country's economic conditions and the extent of freshwater withdrawal can affect efforts devoted to studies on freshwater ECR and ESs. Some ecosystems, such as rivers and wetlands, have attracted much more attention than others. Although most studies have discussed ESs in general, the provisioning and regulation of ESs are mainly considered in studies that differentiate specific ES categories. Current limitations in applying the ES concept in ECR across different studies suggest that further collaboration is needed among ecologists, practitioners, stakeholders and policy‐makers to develop a broad mix of approaches for the best and widest use of the ES concept in protecting and enhancing freshwater ecosystems.