A review of riverine ecosystem service quantification: research gaps and recommendations

1.Increasing demand for benefits provided by riverine ecosystems threatens their sustainable provision. The ecosystem service concept is a promising avenue to inform riverine ecosystem management, but several challenges have prevented the application of this concept.

2.We quantitatively assess the field of riverine ecosystem services’ progress in meeting these challenges. We highlight conceptual and methodological gaps, which have impeded integration of the ecosystem service concept into management.

3.Across 89 relevant studies, 33 unique riverine ecosystem services were evaluated, for a total of 404 ecosystem service quantifications. Studies quantified between one and 23 ecosystem services, although the majority (55%) evaluated three or less. Among studies that quantified more than one service, 58% assessed interactions between services. Most studies (71%) did not include stakeholders in their quantification protocols, and 34% developed future scenarios of ecosystem service provi...