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Freshwater Lakes and Reservoirs

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The Wetland Book

Abstract

Lakes, ponds, and lacustrine environments are characterized by standing water in depressions of the landscape left by glacier scouring or impoundments along river networks. Depending on their origin and climatic conditions, lakes can be ancient (e.g., African rift lakes) or very young (e.g., recent landslides). The age of most of today’s lakes are in the range of tens of thousands of years old as they were created during the glacier recession of the last ice age (e.g., lakes on or near the Canadian Shield). A handful of largest lakes contain a major proportion of the world’s lake water volume whereas small lakes are more numerous and account for most of lakes surface area. Over time, the natural evolution of lakes is to gradually fill from autochthonous and allochthonous material and sediments. Freshwater lakes, like other surface water ecosystems, offer a wide array of benefits for people, such as water provision, fisheries, flood attenuation, and recreational purposes, and play an important role in global biogeochemical cycles, including water, carbon, and nutrient balances. Overexploitation of freshwater resources threatens the capacity of these ecosystems to provide these benefits in the future.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Etienne Fluet-Chouinard

  2. School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Mathis Loïc Messager

  3. Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Bernhard Lehner

  4. Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Elizabeth Mitchell Drive, PO Box 789, 2640, Albury, NSW, Australia

    C. Max Finlayson

  5. UNESCO-IHE, The Institute for Water Education, Delft, The Netherlands

    C. Max Finlayson

Authors
  1. Etienne Fluet-Chouinard
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  2. Mathis Loïc Messager
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  3. Bernhard Lehner
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  4. C. Max Finlayson
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Etienne Fluet-Chouinard , Mathis Loïc Messager , Bernhard Lehner or C. Max Finlayson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales, Australia

    C. Max Finlayson

  2. Department of Natural Resources, Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada

    G. Randy Milton

  3. Nature Management Services, Cambridge, United Kingdom

    R. Crawford Prentice

  4. Institute for Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University, Albury, New South Wales, Australia

    Nick C. Davidson

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Fluet-Chouinard, E., Messager, M.L., Lehner, B., Finlayson, C.M. (2018). Freshwater Lakes and Reservoirs. In: Finlayson, C., Milton, G., Prentice, R., Davidson, N. (eds) The Wetland Book. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4001-3_201

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