Lakes play a key role in maintaining biodiversity, offering a habitat for countless species of fish, plants, and wildlife.


Natural and artificial lakes contain more than 90% of the Fresh water on the surface of the Earth. Up to 80 % of global wastewater is estimated to enter water bodies untreated with adverse impacts on human and ecosystem health. Rain washes the nutrients in fertilizer into waterways and lakes which can lead to damaging algal blooms, which are predicted to increase by at least 20% by 2050. In half the world’s countries one or more types of freshwater ecosystems are degraded, including rivers, lakes and aquifers.

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