In collaboration with the Secretariat for Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), Heath Kelsey, Tracey Saxby, and Adrian Jones traveled to Samoa (Tracey and Adrian will be there until the end of this month) to help develop an environmental assessment framework for Pacific Island Countries. This current work follows on from a workshop in Nadi, Viti Levu, Fiji, in March this year.

SPREP’s goal with this initiative is to improve the efficiency of regional environmental reporting, in part by applying a consistent assessment framework based on habitats that are common among countries and island types.

Regional assessment framework, based on habitats expected in each island type. Each applicable habitat would be assessed independently and the results integrated to arrive at an overall environmental condition assessment.

This framework is also designed to focus the assessment on the “state” of the environment. Previously, most reporting has been on management “responses” taken to protect the environment, or on “pressures” on the environment; to date, reporting on the actual environmental condition has not received as much attention in the pacific region.

State of Environment reporting framework in relation to Pressures and Responses

Applying the framework in Samoa

We began the process of applying the framework with a workshop in Apia, Upolu, Samoa with the representatives from SPREP and several government ministries, departments, and organizations. The workshop resulted in a draft newsletter that describes the assessment framework, and highlights the resources and pressures affecting the environment in Samoa. This newsletter will be released in time for the 50th independence anniversary celebration in early June, and the current state of the environment report will be the first example of applying the framework in the pacific region.

Workshop participants, Apia, Upolu, Samoa April 16, 2012

Draft cover of the State of the environment newsletter to be released in early June.

In advance of the event on May 4, we had a little local press coverage – Maryland Daily Record and Baltimore Sun – via a telephone conference call arranged by Mike Tidwell of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. This was my statement:

From the perspective of a scientist, I would like to just touch briefly some of the facts of climate change in Maryland. Sea level in Maryland rose by 1 foot in the 20^th century. As a result, Maryland has experienced considerable shoreline erosion and deterioration or loss of coastal wetlands. And sea-level rise is very likely to accelerate, inundating hundreds of square miles of wetlands and land on the Eastern Shore. Projections that include accelerating the melting of ice would increase the relative sea level along Maryland’s shorelines by more than 1 foot by mid-century, and 3 feet by late 21^st century, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow. If sea level rises by 3 feet, most tidal wetlands would be lost.

Sea-level rise will impact the mid-Atlantic states harder than anywhere in the US, and no where is it more evident than in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Projections put the County’s tidal marshes, and in particular those of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, in jeopardy.

The Refuge has been losing on average 1 acre of land per day to inundation and erosion from rising sea levels and land subsidence. In an effort to mitigate these impacts, a Blackwater Climate Adaptation Project has been initiated to try to protect and rebuild marshes.

From the perspective of a concerned citizen, we need to do more to fight the effects of global warming, which reach far beyond Blackwater. It is already impacting our homes and businesses, schools and highways every time a strong coastal storm lines up with a high tide. Outside of St Michaels, I have seen the first floors of my neighbors waterfront homes under water. In Easton, I have paddled my canoe across the flooded pavement of a public parking lot after a storm surge brought sea levels well upshore. I have seen a fire station outside of Cambridge completely surrounded by floodwaters, preventing their ability to respond quickly to fires. We need our Congressmen to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by directing our energy policy away from fossil fuels and toward clean, green energy sources.

On Saturday, May 5 at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, while I handed out IAN Press newsletters Maryland at Risk to curious passersby, our group of kayakers roped off approximately 1/2 acre of wetlands to demonstrate only half of the full acre that is lost each day at Blackwater (Dixie Birch, BNWR, 2008). Hopefully, Saturday’s climate change action events all over the world will draw attention to the threats of global warming as we ask our legislators to move away from fossil fuel energy sources and enact a renewable energy program.

Kayakers starting to rope of the half acre area.

The roped off area along with "Connect the Dots" signs.

Sea-level rise is drowning these wetlands signage at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by the folks at Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) to organize a “Connect the Dots” event in our backyard at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, a place many of us know to be particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise.

The loss of wetlands to open water is dramatic.

While I had to put this challenge on hold until I had free time outside of work, I managed to post an announcement and call for volunteers on the Horn Point Laboratory news list within a few days. Meg Maddox responded and hopes to encourage other HPLers to participate. Also, she volunteers periodically at Blackwater and so has contacts there for support.

The event has evolved from just the two of us to three (I drafted my husband, John, last night). However, today, I registered our event, Sea-level rise is drowning Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, on the 350.org website for the world to see, so we are hoping to get some more folks to join us.

I have come up with a plan that we and CCAN think will be effective. Here’s a quick rendition of the photo op staging.

This is a draft staging of the Connect the Dots event.

Yes! You read that right! One acre per day on average is lost at Blackwater! That statistic comes from a 2008 presentation by Dixie Birch entitled “Global Climate Change and Wetland Loss at Blackwater NWR” who was the Refuge wetlands biologist at the time. As a result, it’s no surprise that the Refuge folks are doing all they can to restore and protect its existing wetlands using clean dredged material, and even expanding its boundary by purchasing land. For more info, check out the Management tab on the Refuge website.

I hope you will consider joining us for the event. As you can see by the image above, the more bodies, the greater the impact for the photo. And if we happen upon some visitors, the more opportunities to educate the public about the effects of climate change.

For more info on the present and future impacts of climate change in Maryland, check out these IAN publications.

Welcome to the 2011 Chesapeake Bay report card release. My name is Bill Dennison, and I am with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science or UMCES. For the past six years, a group of scientists associated with a partnership that we formed between UMCES and NOAA called EcoCheck has been producing annual report cards for Chesapeake Bay. In addition, EcoCheck scientists have been working with various riverkeeper and waterkeeper groups in the region to develop scientifically rigorous report cards at a more detailed level. We are here today to present the 2011 report card results but also to celebrate some of the activities that various groups are engaged in to begin to improve these report card scores. We have two other speakers lined up for today, and they will make short remarks relating to the report card and the societal response to the scores. I will present the overall report card scores and Caroline Wicks, the EcoCheck project manager will follow up with details about the scores. Following Caroline, we have Nick DiPasquale, Director of the Chesapeake Bay Program to talk about the federal government’s involvement in the restoration of the magnificent Chesapeake Bay.

Bill Dennison presenting the overall report card scores.

I also would like to acknowledge some of our colleagues attending today from various organizations in the Chesapeake Bay region. Dr. Bob Summers, Maryland Secretary of the Environment, has been leading the effort to upgrade sewage treatment facilities throughout Maryland and works with Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in the BayStat initiative to track and accelerate progress in Bay restoration. Laurie Schwartz and Adam Lindquist from the Waterfront Partnership, an interesting consortium of business, government and non-government organizations and individuals who are leading the effort to restore Baltimore Harbor.

Today we have gathered in the shadow of this building which houses the Institute for Marine and Environmental Technology, a consortium of three universities, UMCES, University of Maryland Baltimore County and University of Maryland Baltimore. In this building, led by Acting Director Dr. Russell Hill, there are some very clever and committed faculty and students who are working to harness modern scientific techniques to help solve environmental problems.

In addition, we have chosen to launch the report card in this wonderful new park which also serves as a stormwater treatment system so that the runoff from the surrounding pavement and roofs does not directly enter Baltimore Harbor, but percolates into the ground, recharging the groundwater levels and effectively treating the water. This park illustrates what a group of concerned people can accomplish and was spearheaded by the Waterfront Partnership, an organization of business leaders, government officials, and non-profit organization volunteers and staff dedicated to the goal of a swimmable and fishable Baltimore Harbor by 2020. The official opening of Pierce’s Park will by on May 6 at 2 pm. In addition, a large floating wetlands project will be launched this Friday in front of the World Trade Center.

Caroline Bill and Nick at the report card release

A novel approach we developed for this year’s report card release was a photo contest for the report card cover. The photograph of a Bald Cypress swamp in the headwaters of the Nanticoke River, Delaware by Benjamin Reed won first place. This beautiful photograph illustrates the diversity of habitats and relatively pristine conditions of some regions within the Chesapeake watershed. The second place photograph taken in Town Creek off the Choptank River, Maryland by Jim Kidd was an iconic watermen photograph, illustrating the long and important connection between people and Chesapeake Bay. Two third place photos included a photograph by Guy Willey, Sr. of a submerged road in southern Dorchester County, Maryland, dramatically depicts the vulnerability of the Chesapeake Bay to climate change and sea level rise. The other third place photo was by Danny Poet just south of the Chesapeake Bay bridge in the mainstem of the Bay. This photo of a Great Blue Heron perched on a log floating provides a reminder that last year’s conditions were influenced to large degree by unusually high water flows from the Susquehanna River. There is a high likelihood that the tree in the photograph is of Pennsylvania origin.

Photo content winners - First Place: Benjamin Reed (front cover top-Bald Cypress swamp, headwaters of the Nanticoke River, DE) Second Place: Jim Kidd (front cover bottom left-Town Creek, Choptank River, MD) Third Place: Guy W. Willey, Sr. (front cover bottom middle-Elliot's Island, Dorchester County, MD) and Danny Poet (front cover bottom right-mainstem Bay)

The report card score for 2011 was an overall D+, which is the second lowest score that we have recorded since 1986, the furthest back that we have been able to calculate scores. The only worse score was in 2003, another year of extremely high freshwater flows. This is obviously not good news for Chesapeake Bay and it occurs in spite of some very positive efforts in terms of restoration efforts.

The 2011 report card grades ranged from three Cs (Upper Bay, Lower Bay and Upper Western Shore to two Fs (Elizabeth and Patuxent Rivers). The 2011 scores dropped compared with 2010 scores in 13 of the 15 reporting regions. The only two regions to show slight improvements were the Patapsco and Back Rivers and the rivers just to the south of here in Anne Arundel County.

What accounted for such poor scores last year? We believe that a sequence of events contributed to the poor health in 2011. It started with a particularly wet spring which flushed large amounts of nutrients and sediments into the Bay. Based on these spring time conditions, our scientific colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and UMCES provided an accurate ecological forecast of poor to very poor dissolved oxygen conditions. As well, the runoff led to murky water which lasted all summer. The spring flows were followed by a hot, dry summer and the strong stratification of warm, fresher water on top of cool, salty water prevented oxygen from reaching bottom waters. We had a well developed and persistent zone of low oxygen bottom waters (the so-called ‘dead zone’). Near the end of the summer we had Hurricane Irene which thoroughly mixed the Bay and broke up the persistent low oxygen zone, which was not bad for the Bay. But Irene was followed by Tropical Storm Lee which generated high water flows, particularly down the mighty Susquehanna River. This brought tons of sediment into the Bay (an inch and a half of sediment blanketed the upper Bay) and more nutrients into the Bay, setting up unusual low oxygen conditions into autumn.

Caroline Wicks from EcoCheck provided details of the different indicators and the relationship between the sequence of weather events and the resulting report card scores. Nick DiPasquale from the Chesapeake Bay Program provided an overview of the Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) and the regulatory framework, but also emphasized the partnership activities occurring throughout the watershed.

Caroline Wicks providing details of the different indicators.

Nick DiPasquale providing an overview of the Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) and the regulatory framework.

We wrapped up by congratulating the strong environmental initiatives recently enacted by the Maryland General Assembly and are hopeful that Virginia and Pennsylvania will follow suit. We thanked the dozens of scientists who collect, analyze and interpret the data used in the report card. We ended with the hope is that this will be the worst report card score that we will ever report—that the record cover crops planted last fall by Maryland farmers and the accelerated sewage treatment upgrades will soon be manifested in improving report card scores in the future.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation workshop participants (left to right): Paul Marshall, Eva Abal, Heath Kelsey, Cath Collier, Britta Schaffelke, Theresa Fyffe, Katharina Fabricius, Jane Thomas, Norm Duke, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Claire Hanratty, Bill Dennison

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has an Attributes Working Group, chaired by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, which has been developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for assessing impacts of climate change on the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg discusses the synergistic effects of various climate change impacts on coral reefs.

There are major climate impacts already being manifested on the Great Barrier Reef, including sea surface temperature induced coral bleaching, coral skeletal degradation due to ocean acidification and relative sea level rise leading to inundation of mangroves. Changes in runoff due to rainfall anomalies could also have profound implications for nearshore reefs, seagrasses and mangroves. The development of a climate vulnerability index would provide a probability-based assessment of the likelihood of damage due to climate, not unlike the fire danger threat levels.

Participants during the workshop in Brisbane, Australia.

The climate vulnerability index is designed to complement the Great Barrier Reef report card, which was developed to track the implementation of the Reef Plan through the Paddock to Reef program. The same six reporting regions will be used: Cape York, Wet Tropics, Burdekin, Mackay/Whitsunday, Fitzroy and Burnett/Mary regions.

Recent software enhancements like Adobe Illustrator’s Live Trace Tool make it possible to instantly convert photos into vector illustrations and while this approach may appear tempting, the results are often not appropriate for use in a symbol library or conceptual diagram. The key issues are:

1. Quality and clarity – hand traced images can be stylized for simplicity, while automated ones are often too detailed and look messy and jagged.
2. Automated traces are very difficult edit due to the shear number of paths.
3. File size – the automated trace in this example is 8 times larger.
4. Trouble with removing surrounding elements – note the missing parts of the fish where the tentacles of the anemone were overlapping part of the fish.

Example showing difference between automated live trace vs a well drawn hand traced illustration.

IAN has developed an interactive tutorial to show you exactly how to trace this clownfish photo in Illustrator. It will introduce you to a variety of techniques that will allow you to develop your own symbols. If you create something and think it would be a good fit for our libraries, we’d love to have your contributions via our symbol contributions forum.

While the techniques used are quite simple, and with time and practice most people can master production of simple symbols, more complicated ones do require some artistic flair. If you are in need of symbols that are not available in the IAN symbol libraries, you can contact us for a quote to have one of our talented science communicators make them for you.

AWERA workshop group in Surfers Paradise, QLD, Australia

The report card process engages scientists in the monitoring, analysis and evaluation of environmental data. The ability of environmental report cards to effectively capture the public’s attention has been demonstrated in several locations at different spatial scales. The steps in creating a reporting framework (a) conceptualization, b) choosing indicators, c) establishing metrics and thresholds, d) developing overarching indices and e) communicating results) are similar for all report cards, but there is considerable variability as to the shape and form of the final product. In addition, the manner in which the report card is delivered to government or stakeholders and the management response to the report card scores is highly variable. These two phases, 1) integration of environmental data into report cards and 2) application of report card results into policy and management responses require scientific credibility, strong science communication and a governance structure that embraces scientific results. Developing an understanding of the key features in the integration and application phases of environmental report cards will benefit practitioners attempting to develop their own report cards.

Bill Dennison, Health Kelsey and Jane Thomas from the Integration and Application Network facilitated the workshop which was organized by Eva Abal (University of Queensland) and Barry Ball (International WaterCentre). Workshop attendees included Stuart Bunn (Griffith University), Paul Greenfield, Hugh Possingham, and Jane Hunter, (University of Queensland) and Tim Carruthers (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme). In addition, Mark Pascoe (International WaterCentre) and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (University of Queensland) served as sounding boards.

AWERA workshop participants - Back row: Barry Ball, Jane Hunter, Tim Carruthers, Paul Greenfield, Stuart Bunn, Hugh Possingham. Front row: Jane Thomas, Eva Abal, Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey.

Workshop participants in Nadi, Fiji

Sponsored by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the workshop began by covering the current (and onerous) reporting requirements to various global, regional, and national organizations. By the end of the two-day intensive workshop, the following recommendations were agreed upon:

• Strengthen the Pacific Plan as the regional framework for sustainable development and to facilitate streamlined reporting.
• Promote national level ownership of reporting, to drive an effective reporting process at regional and international levels.
• Develop indicator frameworks that address national priorities while facilitating streamlined reporting using existing and accessible databases.
• Increase capacity (build or supplement) at a national level to better deliver streamlined reporting.
• Present a case for differential reporting strategies for Pacific small island nations.
• Seek opportunities to harmonise donor reporting requirements.

Stay tuned for the workshop summary document, which will be produced in the usual IAN science communication style:

Draft cover of the workshop summary document.

BILL: Very good question. What we have to maintain is opportunities for researchers to get peer review publications because that counts. That’s part of their ten year promotion package, and so we don’t want to short change that. Yet, we can’t necessarily wait five years for the full process of analyzing data, submitting the journal, and eventually seeing that trickle out. And what we’ve done is try to do both. In Southeast Queensland we wrote a couple books along the way, capturing the science as the rolling synthesis, as I call it. So, most of this now is truly into scientific literature, but we actually did this from start to finish in six months, and we did it in a storyboard fashion. The way we do it is we mock them up as a story board so we try to say to ourselves “What’s the message?” And we use an active, declarative statement. Then how are we going to support that statement that the scientist wanted to make? Well, we’ll use some photographs, we’ll use a map with some little data insets, and we’ll use a diagram. And then we have room for 150 words. So give us 150 words, give us these maps and charts and we’ll use that two page spread. So, you can mock this up and generate these story boards. In fact, the way we did the second book is we literally wallpapered the wall. Each page was mocked up. Then it can be turned around relatively quickly, and it doesn’t preclude publications. In a couple of cases, we will have a whole PhD thesis in one page. It was relevant to the topic, but wasn’t worth more than one page, because we only have so much room. This one book is eighty authors, so everybody gets a piece of it, everybody gets credit. I think multi-author, synthetic publications are a way to augment the science. And we can’t wait. I think the epiphany came to me when we were doing this healthy waterways project, and an engineer came up to me and said “Bill I would like to know whether we should put this pipe a kilometer off shore, or twenty kilometers. What do you thinks best?” (Bill): Good question. We’re going to do the modeling, research and well turn it around within a year which is really fast for scientific things and well get you an answer. He told me “You don’t understand, were going to make a decision tomorrow. With or without you, we’re making a decision, so; what do you think?” So the epiphany for me was that you cannot do the science, package it together, and then implement it. You have to do the management and science in parallel, feeding across all the way, and moving forward. It’s not linear; it needs to be in parallel.

The adaptive management cycle from "Integrating and Applying Science" (IAN Image Library)

QUESTION: Mike from CSIRO. After that answer I thought I had to ask you to solve one of the great dilemmas we have in contested science. One of the reasons why there is a concern with going and getting into the field of new literature, is because we now, in areas like climate change, and a whole range of related areas, the issue has become a matter of opinion. All opinion is equal. Depending on which newspaper you’re getting, some are more equal than others, and the only way we discriminate, what we as scientists say, is because of new literature, so there has become a real danger in speaking to that.

BILL: Good Point, and good example, with climate change. What I will argue is that the books that we are producing with Healthy Waterways have more intense peer review than the average anonymous 2 reviewers that you have for a scientific journal. I’m married to an editor, so I have to listen to her talk at night about the vagaries of getting reviewers. But those books are pretty intensely reviewed. It’s kind of like IPCC. And I know those reports are not “peer reviewed”, but eight hundred scientists went into drafting it, and fifteen hundred reviewed it, and of course they come up with the climate denier to counter the hundreds of scientists that went into the IPCC. So that’s an issue that we’re all going to have to deal with. But, my thinking is that we always want to provide the transparency and accountability, which is one of the tenants of STATing. Let’s show what’s undeniable. Use the photography, use maps, use diagrams to show what can’t be argued, and then we can talk about the fixes, rather than whether it’s a real issue or not. So it’s definitely a dilemma and something we need to think about.

This blog post was created from a presentation by Bill Dennison to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network in Melbourne, Australia on 29 Mar, 2011 (see other posts in the series). The full powerpoint presentation can be accessed on IAN Press.

I want to end with this concept that good science reporting can really make a difference. The first STATer was a guy named John Snow. There is a good a book called The Ghost Map, which talks about how in inner city London, there was an outbreak of cholera. John Snow started plotting cholera deaths on a map, in which each black dot was a dead person. Snow was a physician and he actually administered ether to Queen Victoria during her childbirths. The way he did that is he learned about the effect of ether from sitting at his table, recording the time, sniffing the ether, knocking himself out, waking up, and then checking the time. He died a young man, no surprise. But what he did was brilliant; he associated cholera with contaminated water. He found that a very popular water pump turned out to be the deadly source of the contamination. So, he showed the map, they removed the pump, and ended that epidemic of cholera. So, good STATing can have good positive results.

John Snow's map of Cholera outbreaks help to identify the contaminated pump

If we look back at the history of science and its effectiveness to change the world we see that the Copernican revolution started in 1543 when he wrote a book that challenged the assumption that the sun went around the earth. He promptly died, which was a very smart move because it was very controversial and the Catholic Church put Galileo in jail for espousing the Copernicus theory. It was a revolution because of the way people thought about where they sat in the solar system, and within the universe. So there was the revolution in chemistry and geology and physics and biology, including Darwin‘s theories of natural selection. Although, I will point out that Alfred Wallace came up with the same theory of natural selection, but he’s not buried in Westminster Abbey and he doesn’t have a town named after him. It was Darwin, because he was the great communicator, as well as a great scientist. Einstein was Time magazine’s Person of the Century; Not Roosevelt, or Hitler or Churchill, it was a scientist. And then Watson and Crick, leading the biological revolution that we’re experiencing right now. And the need of society, historically, to understand where we are, and where we came from is now a need for society to understand how we can develop sustainable solutions for our planet. We need a revolution in sustainability. And that’s where, I think, good science has a role in society in the future, and those applications of science are key. And that’s where TERN could be a part of that revolution.

Communicating science can lead to social change

So, my conclusions are that environmental challenges require more innovation. We need innovation in synthesis, reporting and governance, and those can be transformative. The sustainability revolution can be a result of an innovation scientists, and scientists working collaboratively. Arrangements like TERN can really lead the way. Thank You.

This blog post was created from a presentation by Bill Dennison to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network in Melbourne, Australia on 29 Mar, 2011 (see other posts in the series). The full powerpoint presentation can be accessed on IAN Press.