Rivers are essential to human well-being. However, many rivers around the world are severely degraded or at risk, which undermines their ability to provide critical ecosystem services and related benefits.

Furthermore, despite their potential, rivers are often exploited to deliver a relatively narrow range of objectives, to the detriment of river health as well as other human needs.

In an effort to better engage decision-makers in river conservation and restoration, this working paper provides a synthesis of existing evidence regarding the relationship between river health and the benefits for society, and presents a conceptual framework to explain the links between rivers and social, economic and strategic benefits.