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Sampling and data analysis protocols for Mid-Atlantic non-tidal stream indicators

EcoCheck in collaboration with the Mid-Atlantic Tributary Assessment Coalition

Author(s): Wicks EC, Fries AS and Kelsey RH

This document provides guidelines for the successful production of non-tidal stream health report cards. Specifically, this document develops clear and consistent protocols for the identification, collection, and analysis of indicators to be used by report card-producing organizations in Mid-Atlantic rivers and streams. The overall objective of this protocol document is to encourage and enable comparisons of monitoring results from report card-producing organizations and to increase the scientific validity of report cards as outreach tools. This document is intended for use in non-tidal areas only, as the ecosystem health indicators and thresholds discussed are pertinent only to river and stream ecosystems.

Assessing Progress

Three Years Later

Following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, seven Oil Spill Commission Action (OSCA) commissioners released their first report in April 2012—Assessing Progress: Implementing the Recommendations of the National Oil Spill Commission. It provided recommendations for making offshore energy production safer, improving oil spill response, and addressing the impacts on people, economy and the environment. The Commissioners issued their second progress report recently, on April 17, 2013, three days before the third-year anniversary of the disaster. This report, Assessing Progress: Three Years Later, summarizes the Commissioners assessment of what progress has been achieved, and what still needs to be done.

Stakeholder Engagement

Participatory Approaches for the Planning and Development of Marine Protected Areas

Author(s): Walton A, Gomei M and Di Carlo G

The participatory engagement of stakeholders is perhaps the most important component of the planning and development of an MPA. Meaningful engagement depends on the ability of practitioners to build a healthy, lasting, and trustful relationship with stakeholders, including local communities. The approaches described in this guidebook are intended to help practitioners navigate this process of stakeholder engagement.

An economic analysis of ecosystem-based adaptation and engineering options for climate change adaptation in Lami Town, Republic of the Fiji Islands

Technical report

Author(s): Rao NS, Carruthers TJB, Anderson P, Sivo L, Saxby TA, Durbin, T, Jungblut V, Hills T and Chape S

The narrow coastal area of Lami Town, Fiji, is surrounded by steep hills with three rivers flowing to the ocean, making it highly susceptible to flooding and erosion. This technical report provides greater detail of the cost-benefit assessment of four adaptation scenarios to reduce Lami Town's vulnerability to flooding and erosion, both of which are projected to increase due to climate change. These four adaptation scenarios represent the spectrum of ecosystem-based and engineering-based adaptation options. Historically, engineering-based solutions such as building structures to directly increase protection from waves and flooding have been predominantly used. However, ecosystem-based adaptation approaches are increasingly recognized as they provide additional benefits beyond solely reducing the identified threat. For example, key habitats such as coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, and forests offer natural protection from storms, and also provide ecosystem services, supporting fisheries and tourism. This report compares the cost-benefit of each adaptation scenario in relation to the effectiveness at avoiding damages, provides key recommendations, and a step-by-step process for decision making.

Responding to major storm impacts: ecological impacts of Hurricane Sandy on Chesapeake and Delmarva Coastal Bays

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation established a Hurricane Sandy Wildlife Response Fund to conduct a rapid assessment of the ecological impacts of Hurricane Sandy from North Carolina to Rhode Island, with emphasis on habitats and associated wildlife. Scientists from various organizations including government agencies, non-government organizations, and academic institutions provided data and information about Hurricane Sandy in relation to both Chesapeake Bay and the Delmarva Coastal Bays, which was then integrated into a 20-page summary report. The goal of this summary report is to effectively communicate the impacts of Hurricane Sandy to U.S. congressional leadership and the broader public, with recommendations for mitigation activities to ameliorate the impacts of future storm events.

Making Marine Protected Areas Work

Lessons Learned in the Mediterranean

Early engagement with local communities and regional and national officials are essential to the capacity and efficiency of marine protected areas (MPAs). This WWF MedPAN South report, along with the Marine Protected Areas: Guiding Principles and Benefits newsletter, identifies lessons learned in case studies from 5 countries with MPAs in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Published in English, French, and Arabic, this report is an important tool for managers world-wide who want to make their MPAs fully functional and effective.

Making Marine Protected Areas Work (French)

Lessons Learned in the Mediterranean

Making Marine Protected Areas Work (Arabic)

Lessons Learned in the Mediterranean

A comparative analysis of ecosystem-based adaptation and engineering options for Lami Town, Fiji

Synthesis report

Author(s): Rao NS, Carruthers TJB, Anderson P, Sivo L, Saxby TA, Durbin, T, Jungblut V, Hills T and Chape S

The narrow coastal area of Lami Town, Fiji, is surrounded by steep hills with three rivers flowing to the ocean, making it highly susceptible to flooding and erosion. This synthesis report presents a cost-benefit assessment of four adaptation scenarios to reduce Lami Town's vulnerability to flooding and erosion, both of which are projected to increase due to climate change. These four adaptation scenarios represent the spectrum of ecosystem-based and engineering-based adaptation options. Historically, engineering-based solutions such as building structures to directly increase protection from waves and flooding have been predominantly used. However, ecosystem-based adaptation approaches are increasingly recognized as they provide additional benefits beyond solely reducing the identified threat. For example, key habitats such as coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, and forests offer natural protection from storms, and also provide ecosystem services, supporting fisheries and tourism. This report compares the cost-benefit of each adaptation scenario in relation to the effectiveness at avoiding damages, provides key recommendations, and a step-by-step process for decision making.

Colonial National Historical Park natural resource condition assessment

Natural Resource Report NPS/COLO/NRR—2012/544

Author(s): Lookingbill T, Bentsen CN, Carruthers TJB, Costanzo SD, Dennison WC, Doherty C, Lucier S, Madron J, Poppell E and Saxby TA

Colonial National Historical Park offers a vast array of cultural resources, notably the site of the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 and the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 that proved to be the last major campaign of the American Revolution. Four dominant habitat groupings are present within the Park, including forest, grassland, non-tidal wetland, and tidal wetland. Threats to Colonial NHP have been categorized into: internal (within the park), watershed (outside and around park boundaries), and regional (threats that impact the entire region). The combined natural resources of Colonial NHP were assessed as on the border between "degraded" and "fair", attaining 40% of desired threshold scores.

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"Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action." Paul J. Meyer

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A goal of IAN Press is to empower scientists to directly communicate their ideas and concepts. Publications from IAN Press are designed to transform the uninterested to interested; the interested to involved and the involved to engaged.

IAN Press products are designed to be examples of good science communication principles, and the hope is that others will employ these principles so that scientific understanding can be disseminated widely as possible. The production of IAN Press communication publications involves experimentation with communication techniques and, as such, provides various ideas for science communication that can be emulated.

The comparisons and contrasts that IAN Press provides on environmental subjects intend to stimulate scientists, managers, practitioners, policy makers, students and other readers to think more broadly and expansively about the region and issues that they face. The extensive use of visual elements accesses a broader cultural diversity as well, which allow for more global perspectives.

The conclusions and recommendations presented in IAN Press publications are crafted to empower actions, plant seeds of ideas and provide justification for people to take appropriate action to find solutions to environmental problems. The conclusions are made as explicit as possible by employing active titles and featuring them prominently (e.g., front section of books or back cover of newsletters).

On costs

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IAN Press undertakes a rigorous review process by both peer scientists and resource managers. In addition, Integration and Application Network Science Integrators and Science Communicators read, edit and review all aspects of IAN Press publications, including text, conceptual diagrams, photographs, maps, figures and tables. Many IAN Press publications are multi-authored, and each author contributes to the review and editing of the entire publication. This is not the classical peer review system of a limited number of anonymous reviewers working with an editor to recommend changes, rather a larger number of non-anonymous reviewers that develop consensus on each word, visual element and recommendation. The review process is often accelerated by IAN Press to accommodate timely publication.

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Science Communicators are the key element in the production of IAN Press documents. They design the layout of the document, obtain and edit the visual elements, designate the amount and style of text, and orchestrate the review and editing process. IAN Press documents are produced using a 'storyboard' approach, in which the central message(s) are identified and various visual elements selected to support the central message(s). This is in contrast to the more traditional method of writing text and adding in visuals subsequently. In video and film production, storyboards are used and the producer is key to assembling the visual elements. Science Communicators serve in an equivalent role in terms of assembling all the pieces that go into the publication.

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IAN Press relies extensively on color for photographs, maps, conceptual diagrams, figures and even text and tables to a limited degree. The use of color allows for an increased data density and provides a bigger visual impact considering the amount of the human brain devoted to visual discrimination of colors. Color allows for greater discrimination of visual elements and in data presentation, a closer juxtaposition of different elements and greater comparative utility. The preponderance of color printers and the ability of electronic versions to be displayed in color promote the inexpensive dissemination of full color documents. In order to help color-blind people compensate, an effort is made to provide other visual clues in graphics, such as symbols with different shapes or map delineations with different shading or texture, but some of the visual impact will be compromised.

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IAN Press does not target a narrow, specific audience, rather attempts to be as inclusive as possible. As the world becomes more specialized, with marketing forces that promote highly targeted advertising campaigns, IAN Press products attempt to reach the broadest audience possible. IAN Press attempts to raise the bar rather than dumb down the message by using non-technical language, defining all terms and reducing acronym use. By providing synthesis, visualizations and context, we feel that relatively sophisticated concepts can be grasped by a non-technical audience. In fact, science has become highly specialized and often the language, tools and approaches used in various scientific disciplines are relatively incomprehensible to specialists in other disciplines. Thus, one audience of IAN Press is scientists from other specialties to encourage inter-disciplinary thinking and approaches.

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With the growing popularity of electronic media, the carbon footprint involved in producing and distributing paper products, and the ability to provide infinite resources via the web, it could be argued that IAN Press should disseminate entirely via electronic means. While IAN Press provides downloadable, web accessible materials, IAN Press continues to produces written products for the following reasons:

There is rigor and discipline required in producing science communication products that have limited 'real estate', that, is limited amounts of space to convey a message. A paper product maintains focus, while web links can lead to tangential issues. The priority setting required to establish the final layout and include various communication elements is important in conveying information. Fixed 'real estate' forces condensation, synthesis and integration. Every visual element is uniquely created for the purpose of conveying the specific information intended, rather than repurposed from other sources.
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Since various IAN Press products are intended to inform a broad community from policy makers to the general public, the weight of scientific support that can be marshaled can be a factor in empowering people to action. In order to make an impact, the difference between hundreds of web pages and hundreds of printed pages is one reason to provide print versions of IAN products. In addition, internet access is not equally applied globally or socially, and in some societies and sectors of society, a written product provides a more accessible source, particularly through libraries and schools.
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