Integrated catchment management and ecosystem services: A twenty-five year overview

The ecosystem services of rivers and watersheds (also called catchments) should be considered in pursuit of integrated catchment planning, decision-making, and management to sustain and/or enhance this important natural capital. To determine if and how river and watershed studies have been accounting for ecosystem services, 25 years of ecosystem service-related river and watershed studies were reviewed. The most commonly studied ecosystem services for rivers and watersheds were recreation (41% of studies), food (29%) and climate regulation (26%). Many of the studies also focused on three ecosystem service themes: modelling (91%), mapping (80%), and economic valuation (72%); 58% of the studies investigated all three of these themes. It is important to note that the majority of the ecosystem service related studies only focused their investigation on a handful of ecosystem services; hence, the potential externalities for the non-focal ecosystem services may have been overlooked.