Freshwater Ecology and Conservation ― Approaches and Techniques

This practical manual of freshwater ecology and conservation provides a state-of-the-art review of the approaches and techniques used to measure, monitor, and conserve freshwater ecosystems. It offers a single, comprehensive, and accessible synthesis of the vast amount of literature for freshwater ecology and conservation that is currently dispersed in manuals, toolkits, journals, handbooks, 'grey' literature, and websites. Successful conservation outcomes are ultimately built on a sound ecological framework in which every species must be assessed and understood at the individual, community, catchment and landscape level of interaction. For example, freshwater ecologists need to understand hydrochemical storages and fluxes, the physical systems influencing freshwaters at the catchment and landscape scale, and the spatial and temporal processes that maintain species assemblages and their dynamics. A thorough understanding of all these varied processes, and the techniques for studying them, is essential for the effective conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems.

Jocelyne Hughes, Course Director of MSc in Water Science , Policy, and Management, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, UK

Jocelyne Hughes has over 30 years experience of teaching and research in ecology and conservation. She graduated from the University of Cambridge, UK, with a degree in Geography and undertook her PhD at the University of Tasmania. It was in Australia that Jocelyne focused on freshwater ecology and conducted field research into the ecology of aquatic macrophytes in riverine wetlands in Tasmania, and the lakes of sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. Since then, she has worked as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Oxford, University of Melbourne, University College London and University of Reading, has conducted research into the ecology and conservation of wetlands in Tunisia, Guatemala and the UK, and teaches field techniques in wetlands in the UK and overseas.