Routledge Handbook of Wetlands

This handbook provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the place, value and significance of wetlands, presenting perspectives from across the environmental and social sciences.

Recent decades have witnessed unprecedented global interest in wetlands and the critical role they play in supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services such as carbon storage, flood mitigation, as well as their direct benefits for people and society that include the provision of food, clean water and a range of cultural services. This Routledge Handbook of Wetlands brings together a wide range of perspectives from social and environmental disciplines, and voices from different wetland stakeholders from the global north and south, to present an assessment of our current understanding of wetlands, their environmental significance, and their place in society and policy. A recurring theme of the book is an exploration of how our current knowledge of wetlands, that is often fragmented along traditional disciplinary lines, can be brought together to enable a more integrated, interdisciplinary and social-ecological conceptualisation that aligns more closely with real-world complex challenges, and which offers new directions in wetland management for sustainable development.

This handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of wetland management, environmental science, water resource management, conservation ecology, environmental humanities and sustainable development.

Alan Dixon is Professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Science and the Environment at the University of Worcester, UK. He is the co-editor of Wetland Management and Sustainable Livelihoods in Africa (Routledge, 2013) and co-author of Africa: Diversity and Development (Routledge, 2023).

Ian Maddock is Professor of River Science in the School of Science and the Environment at the University of Worcester, UK. He is the co-author of Ecohydraulics: An Integrated Approach (2013).