The HydroATLAS database provides a standardized compendium of descriptive hydro-environmental information for all watersheds and rivers of the world at high spatial resolution. Version 1.0 of HydroATLAS offers data for 56 variables, partitioned into 281 individual attributes and organized in six categories: hydrology; physiography; climate; land cover & use; soils & geology; and anthropogenic influences. HydroATLAS derives the hydro-environmental characteristics by aggregating and reformatting original data from well-established global digital maps, and by accumulating them along the drainage network from headwaters to ocean outlets. The attributes are linked to hierarchically nested sub-basins at multiple scales, as well as to individual river reaches, both extracted from the global HydroSHEDS database at 15 arc-second (~500 m) resolution. The sub-basin and river reach information is offered in two companion datasets: BasinATLAS and RiverATLAS. The standardized format of HydroATLAS ensures easy applicability while the inherent topological information supports basic network functionality such as identifying up- and downstream connections. HydroATLAS is fully compatible with other products of the overarching HydroSHEDS project enabling versatile hydro-ecological assessments for a broad user community.

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Increasing demand for benefits provided by riverine ecosystems threatens their sustainable provision. The ecosystem service concept is a promising avenue to inform riverine ecosystem management, but several challenges have prevented the application of this concept. We quantitatively assess the field of riverine ecosystem services’ progress in meeting these challenges. We highlight conceptual and methodological gaps, which have impeded integration of the ecosystem service concept into management. Across 89 relevant studies, 33 unique riverine ecosystem services were evaluated, for a total of 404 ecosystem service quantifications. Studies quantified between 1 and 23 ecosystem services, although the majority (55%) evaluated three or less. Among studies that quantified more than one service, 58% assessed interactions between services. Most studies (71%) did not include stakeholders in their quantification protocols, and 34% developed future scenarios of ecosystem service provision. Almost half (45%) conducted monetary valuation, using 16 methods. Only 9% did not quantify or discuss uncertainties associated with service quantification. The indicators and methods used to quantify the same type of ecosystem service varied. Only 3% of services used indicators of capacity, flow and demand in concert. Our results suggest indicators, data sources and methods for quantifying riverine ecosystem services should be more clearly defined and accurately represent the service they intend to quantify. Furthermore, more assessments of multiple services across diverse spatial extents and of riverine service interactions are needed, with better inclusion of stakeholders. Addressing these challenges will help riverine ecosystem service science inform river management. Synthesis and applications. The ecosystem service concept has great potential to inform riverine ecosystem management and decision‐making processes. However, this review of riverine ecosystem service quantification uncovers several remaining research gaps, impeding effective use of this tool to manage riverine ecosystems. We highlight these gaps and point to studies showcasing methods that can be used to address them.

Projected climate and environmental change are expected to increase the pressure on global freshwater resources. To prepare for and cope with the related risks, stakeholders need to devise plans for sustainable management of river systems, which in turn requires the identification of management-appropriate operational units, such as groups of rivers that share similar environmental and biological characteristics. Ideally, these units are of a manageable size, and are biotically or abiotically distinguishable across a variety of river types. Here, we aim to address this need by presenting a new global river classification framework (GloRiC) to establish a common vocabulary and standardized approach to the development of globally comprehensive and integrated river classifications that can be tailored to different goals and requirements. We define the GloRiC conceptual framework based on five categories of variables: (1) hydrology; (2) physiography and climate; (3) fluvial geomorphology; (4) water chemistry; and (5) aquatic biology. We then apply the framework using hydroenvironmental attributes provided by a seamless high-resolution river reach database to create initial instances of three sub-classifications (hydrologic, physio-climatic, and geomorphic) which we ultimately combine into 127 river reach types at the global scale. These supervised classifications utilize a mix of statistical analyses and expert interpretation to identify the classifier variables, the number of classes, and their thresholds. In addition, we also present an unsupervised, multivariable k-means statistical clustering of all river reaches into 30 groups. These first-of-their-kind global river reach classifications at high spatial resolution provide baseline information for a total of 35.9 million kilometers of rivers that have been assessed in this study, and are expected to be particularly useful in remote or data-poor river basins. The GloRiC framework and associated data are primarily designed for broad and rapid applicability in assessments that require stratified analyses of river ecosystem conditions at global and regional scales; smaller-scale applications could follow the same conceptual framework yet use more detailed data sources.

Effectively conserving ecosystem services in order to maintain human wellbeing is a global need that requires an understanding of where ecosystem services are produced by ecosystems and where people benefit from these services. However, approaches to effectively identify key locations that have the capacity to supply ecosystem services and actually contribute to meeting human demand for those services are lacking at broad spatial scales. We developed new methods that integrate measures of the capacity of ecosystems to provide services with indicators of human demand and ability to access these services. We then identified important areas for three ecosystem services currently central to protected area management in Canada—carbon storage, freshwater, and nature-based recreation—and evaluated how these hotspots align with Canada’s current protected areas and resource development tenures. We find that locations of ecosystem service capacity overlap only weakly (27–36%) with actual service providing areas (incorporating human access and demand). Overlapping hotspots of provision for multiple ecosystem services are also extremely limited across Canada; only 1.2% (∼56 000 km2) of the total ecosystem service hotspot area in Canada consists of overlap between all three ecosystem services. Canada’s current protected area network also targets service capacity to a greater degree than provision. Finally, one-half to two-thirds of current ecosystem service hotspots (54–66%) overlap with current and planned resource extraction activities. Our analysis demonstrates how to identify areas where conservation and ecosystem service management actions should be focused to more effectively target ecosystem services to ensure that critical areas for ecosystem services that directly benefit people are conserved. Further development of these methods at national scales to assess ecosystem service capacity and demand and integrate this with conventional biodiversity and conservation planning information will help ensure that both biodiversity and ecosystem services are effectively safeguarded.