Rivers & Lakes Protocol Bundle

Freshwater is essential for a large portion of life on our planet. Sources of freshwater act as keystone to their surrounding ecosystem and typically include rivers, lakes, wetlands, streams, and underground aquifers. These sources serve as both storage reservoirs and purifying basins for the water crucial to people and wildlife.

Rivers and lakes are especially important sources due to their great water supply and utility to humanity. However, this utility makes these ecosystems particularly vulnerable to human overexploitation and environmental disruption.

Learn more about MyNASA Data and the Rivers and Lakes protocol bundle.

The Many Uses of Freshwater

We use our various rivers and lakes to supply water for drinking, irrigation, manufacturing, energy, and transport. These water bodies also help act as ecological stabilizers by preventing erosion, providing natural protection from flooding, moderating the local climate, and acting as sinks for the waste we dispose into them. The more we negatively impact our rivers and lakes for our own purposes, the less efficient they are at accomplishing their various environmental functions.

Water is recognized by the United Nations as a precondition for human existence and the Earth's sustainability. This recognition serves as a guiding motivation to effectively manage our freshwater resources in order to avoid pollution and water scarcity. This is an especially important undertaking due to the deleterious affects we've had on our wetlands ecosystems. As documented in the 2016 Living Planet Report, there has been an 80% decline in the world's wetlands and the wildlife therein. For perspective, this is twice the reduction seen in our forests and oceans.

Only through careful conservation and further studies the ecological important of wetlands can we begin to both preserve and restore these former habitats. Inside the Rivers and Lakes Bundle, you can find a collection of protocols, prompts, and projects related to these issues and their intersections with various Earth Spheres.

Bundle Overview