The Society for Freshwater Science (SFS) is an international

scientific society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership may ...

whose members study

freshwater ecosystem Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, bogs, and wetlands. They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a larger salt content. Freshwater habitats can be ...

s (

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

s, and

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

) and ecosystems at the interface between aquatic and terrestrial habitats (

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

fen A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. T ...

riparian forest A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, sink or reservoir. Etymology The term riparian comes from the Latin word '' ...

s, and

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

s).

History

The Society for Freshwater Science was founded in 1953 in

Havana, Illinois Havana is a city in Mason County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,301 at the 2010 census, and 3,040 at a 2018 estimate. It is the county seat of Mason County. History Havana was a major ancient American settlement two thousand years ...

by 13 charter members, and was called the Midwest Benthological Society. It was later known as the North American Benthological Society before being renamed the Society for Freshwater Science.

Membership and Governance

Currently, SFS is approaching 1800 members. The majority of members are students and are from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and are students. Members are employed in

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

consulting A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

, federal and state agencies, and other governmental positions. Members are elected as officers and delegates by their fellow society members.

Executive committee

The executive committee is responsible for day-to-day business of the society and is made up of member officers elected by their peers. It includes the current president, the past president, the president-Elect, the treasurer, and the secretary; the current vice president, the vice president-elect, the public information and policy representative, the chair of the finance committee and the executive director participate in the committee but are non-voting members. Thus, being elected president of the society represents a three-year service role (one year each as president-Elect, president, and past president), and being elected vice president is a two-year role (one year each as vice president-elect and vice president).

Presidents

Recent presidents of the society include:

Other committees

The society is also governed by a board of directors and 19 standing committees: a finance committee, a board of trustees of the endowment fund, a development Committee, a Journal Endowment Committee, an Election and Place Committee, an Awards Selection Committee, a Long-Range Planning Committee, an Annual Meeting Committee, a Publications Committee, a Public Information and Policy Committee, a Constitutional Revision Committee, a Student Resources Committee, an Early Career Committee, a Taxonomic Certification Committee, a Technical Issues Committee, a Science and Policy Committee, an International Coordination Committee, a Conservation and Environmental Issues Committee, and an Education and Diversity Committee. As of 2021, the society also had three ad hoc committees: the Code of Conduct Committee, the JEDI Task Force focused on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and the Membership and Data Committee.

Annual meetings

SFS hosts an annual meeting for its members. On occasion, SFS has partnered with other scientific societies, such as the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...

(AGU), the

Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), formerly known as the Limnological Society of America and the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, is a scientific society established in 1936 with the goal of advan ...

(ASLO), the

Phycological Society of America The Phycological Society of America (PSA) is a professional society, founded in 1946, that is dedicated to the advancement of phycology, the study of algae. The PSA is responsible for the publication of ''Journal of Phycology'' and organizes an ...

, and the

Society of Wetland Scientists The Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS) is an international, professional non-profit organization devoted to promoting understanding, conservation, protection, restoration, science-based management, and sustainability of wetlands. Society membersh ...

to host joint meetings.

Journal

The main

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...

of the Society is the journal ''Freshwater Science''. 4 issues are published each year. The journal was first published in 1982 and called ''Freshwater Invertebrate Biology''. In 1986 the title was changed to ''Journal of the North American Benthological Society'', and the title was changed again in 2012 to ''Freshwater Science''. About once a year the journal publishes open-access fact sheets called BRIDGES that cover new ideas in aquatic science using non-technical language.

Awards

SFS gives out awards annually to its members, including naming members as SFS Fellows who have made excellent contributions to freshwater science over many years. The SFS Fellows program began in 2017 with a large first "class" of fellows: SFS also awards several other awards on an annual basis: the Award of Excellence, the Distinguished Service Award, the Environmental Stewardship Award, and

Hynes Award for New Investigators The Hynes Award for New Investigators is awarded by the Society for Freshwater Science and recognizes an excellent academic research paper in the freshwater sciences by a scientist less than five years after their terminal graduate degree (usually, ...

, named after Noel Hynes; the Graduate Student Conservation Research Award; and awards for the best presentations and posters delivered by students at each annual meeting.

Programs

The Instars and Emerge mentoring programs support

underrepresented group An underrepresented group describes a subset of a population that holds a smaller percentage within a significant subgroup than the subset holds in the general population. Specific characteristics of an underrepresented group vary depending on the ...

s in freshwater science. Students who are accepted into the Instars program as mentees are assigned a graduate student mentor who helps them network at the annual meeting, while the Emerge program provides year-round mentoring. SFS partners with the Stroud Center to provide an aquatic

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

certification program for its members. The society's endowment is also used to fund small awards for research and travel, particularly by students.

Outreach

SFS has several programs focused on outreach to broader audiences. 'Making Waves' is a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

hosted by society members that comes out semi-monthly and discusses freshwater science for a general audience. Society members also maintain media libraries through

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...

for general use. SFS holds a leaf pack workshop at the annual meetings for local environmental groups and educators. Finally, a group of SFS members recently developed the Ecological Evidence Exchange to create a publicly available

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

of scientific information to inform

environmental management Environmental resource management is the management of the interaction and impact of human societies on the environment. It is not, as the phrase might suggest, the management of the environment itself. Environmental resources management aims ...

References

{{authority control Non-profit organizations based in the United States Limnology Learned societies of the United States Biology societies Ecology organizations Organizations established in 1953