Inland surface water

Many surface waters and wetlands are unique and species-rich ecosystems upon which numerous plant and animal species depend, and can provide key ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, primary production, water provisioning, water purification and recreation (Dudgeon et al. 2006; Dodds et al. 2013). Surface waters may be more at risk than other land habitat resources due to multiple pressures such as unsustainable consumption, wetland drainage, land use intensification, stream diversion and climate change, a situation that is particularly worrying in dry areas where water scarcity is already becoming a major limiting factor for wildlife and for humans (Vörösmarty et al. 2010; Carpenter et al., 2011; Dodds et al. 2013). For these reasons, the risk of extinction for freshwater species was already found to be higher than for their terrestrial counterparts (Collen et al., 2013). Here, we quantify surface water in protected areas and countries using the 2020 version of the Global Surface Water product mapped by Pekel et al. (2016). By further assessing temporal changes using the full 34-year history of Landsat data one can distinguish between permanent and seasonal water, and assess the net change of water inside areas that are currently protected.