Fresh water is distributed unevenly across the globe. Earth’s 21 largest lakes hold ~2/3 of all global, liquid, surface, fresh water and occupy diverse ecological and social settings. We identified seven ecosystem services for which there were quantitative data across most or all of these large lakes.

Approximately 1.35 million tonnes of fish are harvested per year from these lakes by commercial or artisanal means, with approximately 95% of this harvest coming from the African large lakes. The 21 lakes support the generation of at least 62.2 GW of power and the transportation of 195 million tonnes/year of cargo, with the Laurentian Great Lakes especially important in those. More than five billion m³ of potable drinking water is treated annually from large lakes, and an additional 812 million m³ water per year is extracted for irrigation purposes. The pattern of services provided to humans by large lakes differs based on social and environmental settings.

While we assembled systematic data on some important ecosystem services from large lakes, many other important, especially non-commercial services could not similarly be examined due to lack of data. More work is needed to show the value of the full set of ecosystem services provided by large lakes.

淡水在全球分布不均。地球上最大的21个湖泊拥有全球所有，液态，地表，淡水的约2/3，并拥有多种生态和社会环境。我们确定了七个生态系统服务，这些服务在大多数或所有这些大湖泊中都有定量数据。

每年通过商业或手工方式从这些湖泊中收获约135万吨鱼，其中约95％的收获来自非洲大湖泊。21个湖泊支持至少产生62.2吉瓦的电力，每年运输1.95亿吨货物，其中劳伦森大湖尤为重要。超过五十亿中号³的清洁的饮用水是从大的湖泊，每年处理，另外8.12亿米³被提取，每年灌溉用水的目的。大湖泊向人类提供服务的方式因社会和环境而异。

虽然我们收集了来自大湖泊的一些重要生态系统服务的系统数据，但由于缺乏数据，许多其他重要的服务，尤其是非商业服务也无法进行同样的检查。需要做更多的工作来显示大湖泊提供的整套生态系统服务的价值。