Ramped up efforts needed to protect the world's inland waters
A study of the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) found that at least 15% of the world’s inland waters are covered by protected areas, which is close to the global target of 17% set out in the CBD's Aichi Biodiversity Target 11.
However, surface water protection is very unevenly distributed globally, still falling well below 17% in over half of the world’s countries.
Source
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/news/ramped-efforts-needed-protect-worlds-inland-waters
Scientific publication
The paper can be accessed here:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210496
Visit the Digital Observatory for Protected Areas (DOPS)
https://dopa-explorer.jrc.ec.europa.eu/