FRC is a non-profit organisation that undertakes conservation and research across a range of disciplines in the field of freshwater science. The centre promotes cross-cutting, collaborative and relevant research and is committed to developing innovative solutions for balancing human need and ecological requirements for water. Members are specialist river and wetland ecologists, with collective research experience exceeding 150 years. Their goals are to achieve a thorough understanding of how freshwater ecosystems are structured and how they function, to improve our ability to use water resources sustainably and to predict the effects of climate change and other human-related impacts on the integrity of freshwater ecosystems.

They also aim to translate this knowledge forms that will guide the management and conservation of these systems for the benefit of all, and to share this knowledge with society and raise awareness of the value of freshwater ecosystems through traditional and digital media channels, like the film Water Mountain, as well as peer reviewed literature. They strive to develop local capacity in the aquatic sciences through supervising and mentoring students and by providing internship opportunities. Their environmental education and outreach programme — Living Labs — exposes school groups to the wonders and values of healthy ecosystems, providing an opportunity to learn about science through participating in real river health assessments.

FRC are doing a wide range of work to achieve their goals — including the Cape Critical Rivers Project, the Southern African River Assessment Scheme, managing and mitigating the risk of agricultural pesticide pollution to the aquatic environment, and bioinformatics initiatives like the Freshwater Biodiversity Information System (FBIS). Built using the open source qgis in partnership with Kartoza, FBIS is system for evaluating long-term change in rivers in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa. The vision is that the information system will encourage and accept a consistent flow of relevant, reliable freshwater biodiversity data from a network of strategically-located sites, into a reputable, open-access database, and will translate these data into a form that is accessible to end-users. The river layer of the Water Stories map is imported from FBIS.