University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Integration and Application Network

Communicate Better, Empower Change

Featured Highlights

2025 Chesapeake Bay and Watershed Report Card

Overall, Chesapeake Bay scored 50%, a C, in 2025. This was a slight downturn from the previous year, but still a significantly improving long-term trend. Overall, the Chesapeake Watershed scored 57%, a C+. There were five ecological indicators, four economic indicators, and three societal indicators. This is the sixth year the watershed has been scored, and one new ecological indicator, Temperature Stress, has been added.

Featured Highlights

Report Cards for the Clinton, Detroit, Huron, River Raisin, and Rouge Rivers

Watershed report cards are powerful tools to describe ecosystem status, increase public awareness, and inform and influence decision makers to improve the health of a watershed. This is the first Southeast Michigan Report Card, which provides an overall socio-environmental assessment of Southeast Michigan based on the combined scores from six river watersheds: Clinton, Detroit, Huron, River Raisin, and Rouge. This report card is the collective effort of dozens of stakeholders throughout Southeast Michigan. Overall, Southeast Michigan earned a score of 49%, a C.

Featured Highlights

Building Resilience in the Maryland Coastal Bays

The theme of this 2022 State of the Coastal Bays is building ecological resilience in the region. The structure of the State of the Coastal Bays is to 1) establish the challenge of climate change, 2) discuss various aspects of ecosystem health, 3) conceptualize key features and major threats and highlight features that increase health and resilience, and 4) discuss various aspects of resilience.

Featured Highlights

Climate Change and Fiji Coasts

The first-ever Fiji Socioenvironmental Report Card is now available! This report, released by the PACPATH team, examines threats to Fiji's communities and coasts and proposes actions to fight the impacts of climate change on the ocean and coastal livelihoods

Featured Highlights

2022 Maryland Coastal Bays Report Card

The aim of this report card is to provide a transparent, timely, and geographically detailed assessment of 2022 Coastal Bays health. Coastal Bays health is defined as the progress of four water quality indicators (total nitrogen, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen) and two biotic indicators (seagrass, hard clams) toward scientifically derived ecological thresholds or goals. The six indicators are combined into one overarching Coastal Bays Health Index, which is presented as the report card score. The Coastal Bays had an overall score of B- for 2022, an incremental improvement over last year.


What's New

BLOG POST

Fourth Annual Mega Deltas Conference: Dialogue Between Land and Sea

The 4th annual Mega Deltas Conference was hosted by The State Key Laboratory for Estuarine and Coastal Research at East China Normal University, in Shanghai, China from October 19–22, 2025. River delta systems are home to more than 500 million people worldwide, provide key points of trade and economic production, and support vital ecosystem functions.
PUBLICATION

Closing the parachute and opening the umbrella: Strategies for inclusivity and representation in producing impactful coastal ecosystem research

Parachute science is the problematic and extractive practice of non-local researchers taking data, knowledge and information from communities of which they are not members, failing to engage the local community and local scientists, marginalizing them in most aspects of the research…
PROJECT

Empowering Communities: Co-creating solutions for environmental stewardship in Chesapeake Bay communities

Stewardship practitioners and others who wish to engage the public through outreach and engagement in communities across the Chesapeake Bay watershed will benefit from a systematic analysis of barriers for stewardship engagement in local communities.