Catherine Reidy Liermann

• PhD
• Teaching Faculty at Western Washington University

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems and processes that underpin human wellbeing is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we define critical natural assets as the natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and we map the global locations of...

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems, and processes that underpin human well-being is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we identify critical natural assets, natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). Critical natural assets for maintaini...

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems, and processes that underpin human well-being is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we identify critical natural assets, natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). Critical natural assets for maintaini...

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems, and processes that underpin human well-being is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we analyze 12 of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) for food, water, and climate security. Using spatial optimization, we identify critical natural assets, the most important ecosystems for providing NCP, comp...

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Free-flowing rivers (FFRs) support diverse, complex and dynamic ecosystems globally, providing important societal and economic services. Infrastructure development threatens the ecosystem processes, biodiversity and services that these rivers support. Here we assess the connectivity status of 12 million kilometres of rivers globally and identify th...

Significance Freshwaters rarely factor into global prioritization of fishery resources, partly because available spatial data on inland fisheries are coarse. Here, we develop a map of the world’s riverine fisheries and compare catches to fish diversity, ecosystem threats, and nutritional dependence. Fish species richness and ecoregional catches are...

Migratory fi shes are natural wonders. For many people, the term migratory fi sh evokes images of salmon audaciously jumping at waterfalls as they return to their own riverine birthplace to spawn after years of growth in the ocean, but freshwater fi shes actually show a broad spectrum of migration strategies. Migratory fi shes include small species...

The global number of dam constructions has increased dramatically over the past six decades and is forecast to continue to rise, particularly in less industrialized regions. Identifying development path-ways that can deliver the benefits of new infrastructure while also maintaining healthy and productive river systems is a great challenge that requ...

As demand for fresh water increases in tandem with human population growth and a changing climate, the need to understand the ecological tradeoffs of flow regulation gains greater importance. Environmental classification is a first step towards quantifying these tradeoffs by creating the framework necessary for analysing the effects of flow variabi...

Dams are obstructing rivers worldwide, impairing habitat and migration opportunities for many freshwater fish species; however, global data linking dam and fish distributions have been limited. Here, we quantify dam obstruction at the biogeographic scale of freshwater ecoregion, which provides the spatial framework necessary to assess the risk of f...

Despite the recognized importance of reservoirs and dams, global datasets describing their characteristics and geographical distribution are largely incomplete. To enable advanced assessments of the role and effects of dams within the global river network and to support strategies for mitigating ecohydrological and socioeconomic costs, we introduce...

We assessed the representation of freshwater fish diversity provided by the National Park Service (NPS) and the potential for parks to serve as freshwater protected areas (FPAs) in the United States. Although most parks were not designed with freshwater conservation in mind, nearly two-thirds (62%) of native U.S. fishes reside in national parks. Ho...

Environmental classification is a first step towards quantifying the ecological tradeoffs of flow regulation by creating the framework necessary for analyzing effects of flow variability on riverine biota. Our study presents a spatially explicit hydrogeomorphic classification of streams and rivers in Washington State, U.S.A., and investigates how p...

The majority of the world’s large river systems are fragmented and have their flow altered by dams. Exceptions to this tend to lie in regions inhospitable to hydropower development, such as northern tundra, or in the least economically active regions. The biogeographic distribution of dam impact is widespread, both at terrestrial and freshwater sca...

Protecting the world’s freshwater resources requires diagnosing threats over a broad range of scales, from global to local. Here we present the first worldwide synthesis to jointly consider human and biodiversity perspectives on water security using a spatial framework that quantifies multiple stressors and accounts for downstream impacts. We find...

Protecting the worlds freshwater resources requires diagnosing threats over a broad range of scales, from global to local. Here we present the first worldwide synthesis to jointly consider human and biodiversity perspectives on water security using a spatial framework that quantifies multiple stressors and accounts for downstream impacts. We find t...

Major rivers worldwide have experienced dramatic changes in flow, reducing their natural ability to adjust to and absorb disturbances. Given expected changes in global climate and water needs, this may create serious problems; including loss of native biodiversity and risks to ecosystems and humans from increased flooding or water shortages. Here,...

A global overview of dam-based impacts on large river systems shows that over half (172 out of 292) are affected by dams, including the eight most biogeographically diverse. Dam-impacted catchments experience higher irrigation pressure and about 25 times more economic activity per unit of water than do unaffected catchments. In view of projected ch...