Global ecosystem typology

Alternative site for the Global ecosystem typology with additional information for ecosystem profiles and indicative maps.

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F3.5 Canals, ditches and drains

Biome: F3. Artificial wetlands biome

Contributors:
(texts)

Canals, ditches and drains are associated with agriculture and cities throughout the world. They take freshwater to and from urban and rural areas, particularly in temperate and subtropical regions. They can carry high nutrient and pollutant loads. Diversity of organisms is generally low, but may be high where there are earthen banks and fringing vegetation. Algae and macrophytes (where present) support microbes and waterbugs and other invertebrates often small fish, amphibians and crustaceans. They are also important pathways for dispersal of some aquatic species.

Key Features

Artificial streams often with low horizontal and vertical heterogeneity, but with productivity, diversity and trophic structure highly dependent on fringing vegetation and subsidies of nutrients and carbon from catchments.

Overview of distribution

In urban and irrigation landscapes mostly in temperate and subtropical latitudes.

Profile versions

  • v1.0 (2020-01-20): RT Kingsford; DA Keith
  • v2.0 (2020-06-18): RT Kingsford; B Robson; M Kelly-Quinn; DA Keith
  • v2.01 ():
  • v2.1 (2022-04-06): RT Kingsford; B Robson; M Kelly-Quinn; DA Keith Full profile available at official site

Main references

Selected references for this functional group:

  • Nunes AL, Tricarico E, Panov VE, Cardoso AC, Katsanevakis S (2015) Pathways and gateways of freshwater invasions in Europe Aquatic Invasions 10: 359 - 370 DOI:10.3391/ai.2015.10.4.01

  • Chester ET, Robson BJ (2013) Anthropogenic refuges for freshwater biodiversity: Their ecological characteristics and management Biological Conservation 166: 64 – 75 DOI:10.1016/j.biocon.2013.06.016

  • Ricciardi A (2006) Patterns of invasion in the Laurentian Great Lakes in relation to changes in vector activity Diversity and Distributions 12: 425-433 DOI:10.1111/j.1366-9516.2006.00262.x

  • Verdonschot RCM, Keizer‐vlek HE, Verdonschot PFM (2011) Biodiversity value of agricultural drainage ditches: a comparative analysis of the aquatic invertebrate fauna of ditches and small lakes Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 21, 715-727 DOI:10.1002/aqc.1220

Diagrammatic assembly model

Diagrammatic assembly model of F3.5 Canals, ditches and drains. See general notes on diagrams. Open image full size.

Maps

Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (coloured red) or minor occurrences (coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. See general notes on maps.

Information about the current valid indicative map for this functional group is shown below.

F3.5.WM.nwx_v2.0

Datasets

  • ESRI-2020-Landcover
  • Global-irrigation-areas

Map references

  • Karra, Kontgis, et al. (2021) Global land use/land cover with Sentinel-2 and deep learning IGARSS 2021-2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IEEE

  • Deepak Nagaraj, Eleanor Proust, Alberto Todeschini, Maria Cristina Rulli, Paolo D’Odorico (2021) A new dataset of global irrigation areas from 2001 to 2015 Advances in Water Resources 152: 103910 DOI:j.advwatres.2021.103910

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