Freshwater
Fresh water is an important resource for many functions and species on earth. This webpage details the importance of freshwater habitats and invertebrates, how Buglife is helping and how you can help.
Many organisms rely on freshwater to live, including humans. Freshwater only equates to approximately 0.7% of all water on earth (excluding freshwater frozen in ice caps and glaciers) but is rich and diverse with wildlife.
Freshwater Habitats | 
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| Close up wetland © Roger Key |
Historically, the UK had plentiful freshwater habitats, however, with the development of agriculture, human settlements and industry many freshwater habitats have been lost or degraded. This decline in freshwater habitats has resulted in a great need to preserve, restore and create new freshwater habitats in the UK in order to conserve services provided by freshwater habitats including providing suitable habitat for freshwater invertebrates.
There is a diverse range of freshwater habitats present in the UK including:
These habitats can be divided into distinct types depending on local environmental conditions for example: chalk rivers occur in calcareous areas.
Freshwater Invertebrates
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| A stonefly larva Dinocras cephalotes © Stuart Crofts |
Freshwater invertebrates are invertebrates that spend at least part of their lifecycle in freshwater (e.g. rivers, streams, ditches, springs, seepages, ponds and lakes). Freshwater invertebrates play a vital role in maintaining the quality of our water; they help to breakdown organic matter and provide a food source for other species such as fish, birds and mammals. They can also be used to assess the health of freshwater systems.
Each type of freshwater habitat has its own unique group of aquatic/wetland invertebrate species, and these species are adapted to the environmental conditions present. For example stonefly larvae have a body adapted to the fast flowing water of rivers, their shape is a flattened cylinder with short legs which are held away from the body allowing them to cling close to rocks.
To learn more about freshwater invertebrates visit Freshwater Invertebrates; Types of Freshwater Invertebrates in Britain or take a look at the freshwater projects in the left hand navigation bar.
Buglife’s Freshwater Officer Buglife's Projects Manager Vicky Kindemba currently oversees Buglife’s freshwater work. Detailed below are the main focuses of Buglife’s current freshwater work with links to more in depth information about current policy work, freshwater projects and campaigns.
Buglife’s Freshwater Projects
Buglife’s freshwater work aims to raise awareness of freshwater issues as well as instigating research and conservation for freshwater invertebrates and their associated habitats; focusing on species and habitats not covered by other conservation organisations. To this end, Buglife’s Freshwater Officer oversees and helps develop freshwater projects helping to improve understanding and conservation of freshwater habitats and invertebrate species that are poorly understood, under considered and currently under threat.
To learn more about Buglife’s freshwater projects visit Wessex Springs and Seepages; Sandy Riverflies; Riverfly Parnership – Species and Habitats Group; Ditches; Freshwater Policy and Campaign Work; Conserving our Crayfish; Action for Invertebrates.
What can you do?
- Make a pond as part of the Million pond project. Ponds are an important habitat for a number of mayfly and caddisfly species, for more information see the Pond Conservation website.
- Survey your pond for invertebrates and other creatures in the Pond Conservation’s Big Pond Dip Survey or OPAL’s Water Survey.
- Stand up for your local river through the 'Our rivers' campaign.
- Don't dispose of unwanted chemicals carelessly - chemicals washed or poured into drains often end up in rivers and other water habitats. Follow the Environment Agency’s Pollution Prevention Guideline: general and near water.
