The 2013 Chesapeake Bay report card provides an important insight into how stormwater runoff affects the Bay. The contrast between the Upper Eastern Shore report card scores which are degrading over time versus the James River report card scores which are improving over time provides important insights. Both regions experienced intense rainfall in 2013, yet the report card scores responded differently.

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Since Memphis, Tennessee is the blues music capital of the world, just upriver from the jazz music capital in New Orleans and a short distance from Nashville, TN, the country music capital, it seemed appropriate to capture our lower Mississippi River workshop in the form of a blues song. Memphis is where Sam Phillips at Sun Records recorded such music luminaries as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

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Once again, a contingent from IAN (Heath Kelsey, Bill Nuttle, Caroline Wicks, Brianne Walsh and me) gathered along the banks of the mighty Mississippi River to meet with a diverse stakeholder group to discuss the issues associated with the Mississippi River. In this case, we learned about the issues associated with the lower Mississippi River, which were surprisingly different from the issues in the Upper Mississippi River and the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers from our previous workshops.

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Following our Connecticut stops, we took the Cross Sound Ferry from New London, CT over to the tip of the north fork of Long Island at Orient Point. From the ferry we could see some important features of Long Island Sound. First, as we sailed out of the Thames River, we could see the rocky headlands, industrial development (particularly the submarine manufacturing base) and busy harbor traffic.

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Bill Nuttle, Caroline Wicks, Anthony Kung and I circumnavigated Long Island Sound, crossing it at both ends (over the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge on the western end and aboard the Cross Sound Ferry on the eastern end), and drove through most of the Connecticut coast and the length of Long Island. We visited five different groups of scientists, resource managers and local conservation groups in Connecticut and Long Island, New York in March (10-13).

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Alex Fries and I had the chance to travel to Adelaide, Australia to deliver a two-day Science Communication Course to the South Australia Department of Environment, Water, and Natural Resources (DEWNR). The course focused on Ecosystem Health Report Cards. DEWNR is currently creating state-wide report cards in the marine, freshwater, terrestrial, and atmospheric environments, reporting on elements like pest species, soil health, reefs, seagrass, salt marsh, and dunes.

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On 24 Jan 2014, I traveled to New York City to meet with the Long Island Sound funders network. This recently formed group is pooling their resources to develop Long Island Sound conservation and restoration initiatives. They are a stimulating and thoughtful group of people from different organizations with different backgrounds, united in this effort to make Long Island Sound a better place to live for the 8+ million people who call the Long Island Sound watershed home.

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A State of the Great Lakes is produced periodically by Environment Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the most recent assessment (2011), there are various classes of indicators that are used: water quality, aquatic-dependent life, landscapes & natural processes and swimming, fishing & drinking features.

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The 16th annual International Riversymposium was held in Brisbane, Australia during September 2013. I traveled to Australia with Heath Kelsey and we made presentations during a stimulating session on environmental report cards, which featured the long-term Southeast Queensland report card program, the Great Barrier Reef report card, our fledgling Mississippi River report card effort, and a bit about the process of creating and maintaining report cards.

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This was my first trip to the subcontinent so everything was new to me. The stopover in Mumbai (Bombay) was my first encounter with the traffic, noise, smells and crowds of people. The airport is surrounded by dense housing, much of which includes blue tarps and corrugated iron as roofing and walls. I could smell the masses of people, even in the airport.

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