The most important ecosystem service humans receive from groundwater is providing clean water for drinking. Groundwater supplies drinking, municipal, industrial, and irrigation water worldwide. The relative importance of services varies across the different freshwater ecosystems. Tables 3.1a-3.1e highlight the major goods and services under a number of major categories (including food production, water quality and quantity, waste disposal, climate modification, and recreation). It is critical that decision makers understand how species can provide unique roles in cycling nutrients and in producing valuable commodities and services in many different types of fresh waters. As native species are lost through local extinction and nonnative species are introduced into fresh waters, there is lively debate regarding trade-offs among different management alternatives. If fresh waters are degraded under intensive exploitation, their natural processes can be diminished or lost completely.

Understanding natural processes that contribute to ecosystem services is of immediate concern given the rates at which human activities are altering natural fresh waters.Īs human population densities increase further and new chemical compounds and technologies are developed, unanticipated consequences will have long-lasting impacts on freshwater benthic ecosystems (Malmqvist & Rundle 2002).

Moreover, these benthic ecosystems provide critical habitat for many other species. Besides natural waste treatment that enhances water quality, many freshwater ecosystems are critical habitats for certain life stages of marine and freshwater fishes, waterfowl, and other sources of human foods. The goods and services provided to humans by freshwater benthic ecosystems may be classed as provisioning services, or products obtained from ecosystems, such as plant and animal food and fiber supporting services, or services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services, such as waste processing, the production of a sustained clean water supply, flood abatement, and climate moderation and cultural services, or nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems, such as aesthetics, education, and recreation (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003).

Aquatic biome ecosystem