The Healthy Rivers for All Partnership spent some quality time last week brainstorming about how our report card projects are perceived. We take it for granted that the report card process increases engagement and leads to great outcomes. We talk about how great report cards are all the time, and we believe it! Positive outcomes are documented through a comprehensive survey of groups that have completed a report card process.

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The first Yucatán Coast Report Card was released in April 2018, the culmination of almost 2 years of work by our colleagues at Laboratorio Nacional de Resiliencia Costera (LANRESC), in Sisal, Yucatán Mexico. The project kicked off with a stakeholder workshop that Jane Hawkey and I helped facilitate in August 2016. The long-term collaboration has made this report card release especially exciting.

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We held a press conference for the release of the 2017 Chesapeake Bay report card on 15 June 2018 on the Potomac River. We used the Hyatt Hotel as the press conference venue in a new development on the Wharf area of Washington, D.C. It was a great venue in that it showcased the social and economic opportunities that a clean waterway can afford. There were new water taxis plying the river, floating wetlands alongside a nice pier, and lots of restaurants and pubs along the waterfront.

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We recently completed our course entitled: "Healthy Rivers for All: Setting the course for sustainability with river basin health report cards". The course was co-taught by Heath Kelsey, Simon Costanzo and me, supported by Suzi Spitzer, our excellent teaching assistant. We used our recently completed book, "Practitioner's Guide to Developing River Basin Health Report Cards," as the textbook. Our lectures were based on content in our newly-published Practitioner's Guide.

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The 2016 report card for the Maryland Coastal Bays was released on December 16th, 2017, at the Ocean City Marlin Club. The report card release was combined with the annual Gold Star Awards banquet. This event was scheduled a little later than usual due to some data processing holdups. In addition, aerial surveys of seagrasses could not be conducted in the summer of 2016 due to bad weather conditions.

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Last month, several IAN staff members traveled to the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to attend the Chesapeake Watershed Forum. The Forum is an annual regional conference hosted by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. This year IAN was represented by Caroline, Emily, Dylan, Vanessa, and Suzi. The 2017 conference theme was Healthy Lands, Healthy Waters, Healthy People.

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My perceptions about where innovations in report cards are heading in Australia and the US. The foundations of these report cards are similar, but influences have caused the two groups to go in slightly different directions. Both appear to be very valuable. Image credit Heath Kelsey … The report cards developed from each group have common characteristics, but focus on different strengths.

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Bill Dennison, Simon Costanzo and I made our annual pilgrimage to Riversymposium in September 2017 for the 20th anniversary of the event. This year the conference was back in Brisbane, Australia (it was held in Delhi in 2016). This is one of my favorite conferences, maybe because the City of Brisbane has become so comfortable for me, but I think it’s really the quality of the content, the clear focus on practices that create real impact, and the wonderful people I get to meet.

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I traveled to Darwin, the Capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia, in order to work with the Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee on developing a vision for an integrated report card for Darwin Harbour. Karen Gibb, Charles Darwin University professor and chair of the Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee, hosted my visit.

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View over Shark River Slough from Pay-hay-okee overlook. Image credit Alexandra Fries … We saw possible signs of the Everglades’ response to accelerated sea level rise at our next stop, the Pay-hay-okee overlook. Beyond Taylor Slough the road continues west through rocky pineland upland habitat before heading south through freshwater marl prairie. The overlook is built on the edge of Shark River Slough, the park’s other, larger flow way.

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