Regional planning of river protection and restoration to promote ecosystem services and nature conservation

[Except] International conservation and sustainability agendas (CBD, 2010; European Union, 2011; IPBES, 2018; United Nations, 2018) have repeatedly called for conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity as well as the enhancement of ecosystem services and benefits to society. These calls are particularly relevant for freshwater ecosystems, which combine conservation interest and high societal value through the supply of multiple ecosystem services (Tharme, Tickner, Hughes, Conallin, & Zielinski, 2018). Freshwater habitats, biodiversity and ecological functions are also amongst the most threatened worldwide, due to a broad range of anthropogenic pressures (IPBES, 2018; Reid et al., 2019). In the European Union, 63% of river and lake habitats protected under the Habitats Directive are considered to hold “Unfavourable” conservation status, and 60% of water bodies are not in “Good” ecological status (IPBES, 2018). [...]Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through a doctoral fellowship (SFRH/BD/115030/2016) co-financed by the European Social Fund through the Human Capital Operational Program (POCH), the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020) and national funds from the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (MCTES). CV would like to acknowledge the support of the Portuguese Infrastructure of Scientific Collections (POCI-01-0145FEDER-022168) (PRISC.pt). JG developed this work within the scope of the project proMetheus – Research Unit on Materials, Energy and Environment for Sustainability, FCT Ref. UID/05975/2020, financed by national funds through the FCT/MCTE