This is to invite you to contribute to a special issue on papyrus wetlands in the journal “Wetlands Ecology and Management” published by Springer.

See http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/ecology/journal/11273

The special issue will focus on tropical wetlands dominated by Cyperus papyrus, commonly referred to as papyrus. Papyrus wetlands support the livelihoods of millions of rural people in sub-Saharan Africa directly through their ecosystem functions and services, e.g. by providing water, food, and building materials but also as the basis for a rich cultural tradition. Moreover, they perform important ecosystem services on a larger scale through their biogeochemical processes and their impact on the hydrological cycle and climate. The exact geographical extent of papyrus wetlands is not known but is almost certainly decreasing as a result of agricultural and economic development. There is a risk that the valuable ecosystem services of this ecosystem will be degraded or even lost. It is therefore important to draw attention to the importance of papyrus wetlands, to review the existing knowledge base and to present the most recent research findings. To increase the potential for using these results in management and policy making, this must be done in an inter-disciplinary context where results from the natural sciences are linked to social science research.

There is still a dearth of information on the functioning of papyrus wetlands and how these functions can be conserved under increasing human pressure. The general goal of the special issue is to draw attention to the importance of papyrus wetlands and explore approaches to understanding the complexity of exploited wetland ecosystems and using this knowledge to support policy formulation for governance and wise use. This means that we would like to include research on papyrus wetlands from different scientific disciplines in the special issue, including socio-economic, hydrological, ecological and other studies. During the recent INTECOL wetlands conference in Florida, Orlando, a special session on papyrus wetlands was sponsored by the Ecology of Livelihoods project through UNESCO-IHE. Several of the papers presented in Orlando will be submitted for publication in this special issue. However, other submissions are welcome.

The following scientists have agreed to serve as guest editors for this special issue:

1. Prof. Kenneth Irvine (UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, the Netherlands)

2. Prof. Dominic Mazvimavi (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)

3. Dr. Lars Hein (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

Deadline for submission of manuscripts for this special issue is 1 November, 2012. Of course you can submit your manuscripts earlier.

After submission, all manuscripts will need to go through the usual review process of the journal. The editors will reject papers that do not fit the theme of the special issue, or papers that they don’t consider to be excellent. Because of the page limit of the journal, we encourage short manuscripts (e.g. short research notes of 5 published pages). The editors may request authors to shorten their paper. For reference, an article with about 7500 words, including text, tables, references and figure captions, and 7 figures results in about 15 published pages. Thus, submitted papers must preferably be shorter than this by about 1/2.

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript feel free to contact Dr Anne van Dam (a.vandam@unesco-ihe.org) if you have questions.