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The Nature Conservancy in Africa - Conservation in Africa

The Nature Conservancy in Asia Pacific - Conservation in Asia-Pacific

The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean - Conservation in the Caribbean

The Nature Conservancy in Central America - Conservation in Central America

The Nature Conservancy in North America - Conservation in North America

The Nature Conservancy in the United States - Conservation in the United States

The Nature Conservancy in South America - Conservation in South America

Reports, Publications and Tools

Scientists from around the world have collaborated and produced a number of reports, publications and tools that contain insight into fresh water, great rivers and our understanding of these complex systems.

Conservancy reports:

 • Assessing Opportunities for Ecosystem Service-based Conservation Strategies (pdf) — a framework for evaluating the feasibility of ecosystem service-based approaches, highlighting key assessment steps and issues.

• Coming Soon! Integrating Ecosystem Services into Economic and Development Decisions: A Guide for the Perplexed – a handbook on ecosystem services. 

• Ecosystem Services and The Nature Conservancy. Learn about the many ways the Conservancy is working on this important discipline. Download now.

Other Reports, Publications

• Global International Waters Assessment: Challenges to International Waters: Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective

• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

• Millennium Project Taskforce on Water and Sanitation: Health, dignity and development: What will it take?

• Sierra Club: Where Rivers Are Born: The Scientific Imperative for Defending Small Streams and Wetlands

• United Nation’s 1st World Water Development Report

• United Nation’s 2nd World Water Development Report

• United Nation’s Environment Programme: An Overview of the State of the World’s Fresh and Marine Waters

• WWF report: Free-flowing rivers: Economic luxury or ecological necessity?

• WWF report: Rivers at Risk

• World Bank and WWF report: Running Pure - Protecting Forests Can Provide Cities with Cleaner, Cheaper Water

Freshwater Tools

• The Conservancy’s Sustainable Waters Program also is working to protect freshwater systems. The program, focused on helping people understand the ecological implications of altering natural water flows, provides a number of tools free of charge.

• Flow—the Essentials of Environmental Flows. This guide from the IUCN Water and Nature Initiative offers practical advice for the implementation of environmental flows in the river basins of the world. It explains how to assess flow requirements, change the legal and financial framework, and involve stakeholders in negotiations. The publication can be purchased in book form or downloaded in PDF file form.

• WWF's Conservation Science Program is developing a global hydrological database, termed HydroSHEDS. For many parts of the world these data and the tools built to use them will open up a range of previously inaccessible analyses and applications related to freshwater conservation and environmental planning.

Information about the Great Rivers Partnership

The Conservancy has produced a variety of materials about the Great Rivers Partnership and its work, which are available for download.

• Conservation Profile takes an in-depth look at the partnership, its goals and the first three focal rivers.

• 2006 Annual Review provides an overview of the partnership’s first year and its accomplishments,

• A series of fact sheets explores the four river systems where the partnership is working: Mississippi, Paraguay-Parana, Yangtze River and Zambezi rivers.

Sunset through cornstalks in field, Tensas National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Sunset through cornstalks in field, Tensas National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana. © Byron Jorjorian/The Nature Conservancy

 

Quick Links

The Rivers

Africa: The Zambezi

Brazil: The Paraguay-Paraná

China: The Yangtze

United States: The Mississippi

River Science Main Page

 

The Center

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"All land is part of a watershed or river basin and all is shaped by the water which flows over it and through it. Indeed, rivers are such an integral part of the land that in many places it would be as appropriate to talk of riverscapes as it would be of landscapes."

Patrick McCully, Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams 

 

 

First bend of the Yangtze River in Shigu of Lijang in China

First bend in the Yangtze River in Shigu of Lijang in China. © Dou Weiyang/The Nature Conservancy