Prologue

Citation

Jones I & Smol J (2023) Prologue. In: Wetzel's Limnology Lake and River Ecosystems. Amsterdam: Elsevier. https://shop.elsevier.com/books/wetzels-limnology/jones/978-0-12-822701-5

Abstract
First paragraph: Water is essential to life on Earth. For human beings, the surface waters on land are especially vital because these are the waters that we access for sustaining our daily lives, providing a plethora of ecosystem services (see Chapter 2). Inland waters encompass a remarkably broad array of forms, as shown in Figures 1–4. Nevertheless, inland surface waters only represent a small fraction of the water on the planet, dwarfed in volume by that in the salty ocean or trapped in ice. The study of these inland waters, in their various guises, and the crucial roles they play in our global environment, is imperative for our continuing existence. This study is limnology.