Impacts of climate-induced drought on lake and reservoir biodiversity and ecosystem services: A review

Abstract

Intensifying extreme droughts are altering lentic ecosystems and disrupting services provisioning. Unfortunately, drought research often lacks a holistic and intersectoral consideration of drought impacts, which can limit relevance of the insights for adaptive management. This literature review evaluated the current state of lake and reservoir extreme drought research in relation to biodiversity and three ecosystem services. The study findings demonstrated that few articles linked or discussed drought implications with one or more ecosystem services, instead focusing primarily on biodiversity. Drought effects on biodiversity varied among species and taxonomic groups. In the limited literature that included ecosystem service provisioning, droughts had a general negative effect. Drinking water supply can decrease and become more costly. Decreasing water flow and volume can reduce hydropower generation. Degraded water quality can also impact recreation. Future intersectoral collaborations and research on intensifying droughts should support adaptive management efforts in mitigating drought impacts.