One of the interesting things that came out of attending the 17th Annual International Riversymposium was the opportunity to learn about several new relevant books. Last year at the 16th Annual International Riversymposium , I launched the IAN Press eBook 'Dancing with Dugongs: Having fun and developing a practical philosophy for environmental teaching and research' that I co-authored with the late Peter Oliver.

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I was asked by Mike DeLuca from Rutgers University to present a plenary talk at the annual gathering of the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML), which was held jointly with the Organization of Biological Field Stations (OBFS) at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. The meeting was titled 'Windows to the World: Networking field stations and marine labs to address environmental change'. OBFS-NAML 2014 Joint Meeting - Windows to the World:

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On October 9th, Bill Dennison, Caroline Donovan, and I traveled to New Rochelle, New York, for a meeting on the Long Island Sound Report Card. The Long Island Sound Study includes two working groups, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), and the Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC). These committees had a joint meeting on October 10th that we participated in, to further the progress of the Long Island Sound Report Card.

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Simon Costanzo, Heath Kelsey, Dave Loewensteiner, Judy O’Neil, Jane Thomas and I attended the 17th Annual International Riversymposium in Canberra, Australia, 15-18 September 2014. The theme of this year’s symposium was ‘Large River Basins’ which was quite topical for the IAN team completing the draft Mississippi River report card.

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Participating in the International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) 3rd Annual Conference, August 14-18 2014 at Glasgow, Scotland … Picturesque landscapes are all around in the Scottish Highlands … I traveled to the International Marine Conservation Congress' (IMCC) conference in Scotland in part because I wanted to visit Scotland - land of Scottish brogues, whisky, and wild, mountainous landscapes!

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I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri August 26, 2014 to facilitate a workshop in the Missouri River Basin, as part of the Mississippi River Report Card project with America’s Watershed Initiative. This meeting, held at the Kansas City Airport Hilton, was a follow-up to the May 23 meeting we had in Rapid City, South Dakota, where we got a good start on conceptualizing issues and concerns in the basin.

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Tracey Saxby and I traveled to Baton Rouge for a two-day training session for the Louisiana Sea Grant Discovery Integration and Application (LA DIA) scholars. Robert Twilley, Louisiana Sea Grant Director, and his staff helped us develop this training session.

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In conjunction with our work on the Long Island Sound embayment report cards, I was invited to speak about report cards at the first annual Connecticut Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Conference. The conference was held on July 25th, 2014 at Goodwin College. The organizers of the conference were Jacqueline Talbot with the Connecticut River Watershed Council and Meghan Ruta with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).

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Understanding resilience to climate change effects is critical to the future of environmental assessment and reporting. Changing air and water temperature, precipitation patterns and storm frequencies, CO2 concentrations, and sea level rise will add significant pressure to the natural and engineered systems that provide us services. Understanding system resilience to these changes is important to developing relevant monitoring, assessment, and reporting frameworks.

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Alex Fries and I had the chance to represent UMCES at the Conference on Ecosystem and Ecological Restoration (CEER) on the New Orleans riverfront from July 28 to August 1, 2014. I presented on our … Alex Fries at the UMCES booth … CEER Conference a good venue for the Mississippi Report Card … There could not have been a more appropriate location to talk about a report card for the Mississippi River than New Orleans, Louisiana this July.

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