Freshwater Species: Status, Monitoring and Assessment

Dear Colleagues,

Freshwater species are globally threatened by overexploitation, pollution, habitat destruction, and invasive species, necessitating urgent conservation assessments. Species decline underscores the need for robust monitoring aligned with international conservation targets. The IUCN Red List plays a pivotal role in evaluating extinction risk in over 30,000 species, highlighting the critical condition of freshwater biodiversity, including concerning trends in freshwater taxa. Despite the establishment of some initiatives, like the use of environmental DNA for species detection, monitoring remains inadequate, highlighting a gap in protection efforts. Addressing these challenges requires enhanced monitoring and strategic conservation efforts to safeguard freshwater ecosystems and their diverse inhabitants.

This Special Issue entitled "Freshwater Species: Status, Monitoring and Assessment" presents a critical examination of biodiversity within freshwater ecosystems and an assessment of the environmental health, distribution, and threats faced by aquatic species. It emphasizes the development of freshwater species monitoring systems for pollution assessment and the integration of environmental monitoring data with toxicological information. This issue also focuses on the application of scientific principles in designing monitoring systems on various scales and the use of monitoring data to evaluate natural resource management and pollution risk. It highlights technical advancements in environmental monitoring, covering a wide range of pollutants and examining systems for estimating exposure at both the individual and population levels. Through these discussions, this issue aims to provide insights into managing renewable natural resources and assessing anthropogenic impacts at the species and ecosystem levels.

Dr. Dariusz Halabowski
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• freshwater species
• monitoring and ssessment
• conservation
• biodiversity
• pollution assessment
• anthropogenic impact
• species indicator
• invasive species
• environmental emergency
• management