The first in person meeting of the new Future Earth Coasts International Project Office (FEC IPO) was in Bremen 27-29 March 2019. It’s an exciting time to be involved in Future Earth Coasts; the organization has a new home centered at the Liebnitz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen, and additional offices distributed among several institutions in China, Australia, the United States, and Germany.

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Last month, Caroline, Alex, and I attended the Citizen Science Association (CSA) conference, CitSci2019, from March 13-16th in Raleigh, North Carolina. This conference was a great opportunity for us to learn more about what is happening in the field of citizen science, network with other professionals, and share updates on some of the projects that we are involved in at IAN.

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James Shannon Building at the National Institutes of Health. I attended a Story Circles session at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland on 7 Feb 2019. My friend and colleague Randy Olson was conducting a one day training program and I rarely miss an opportunity to connect with Randy, based on our intertwined career journeys and our mutual interest in improving science communication.

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Since this is the 500th blog that I have posted to the Integration … and Application Network website, it seems appropriate to reflect on my blogs. Originally, I was a reluctant blogger, and it took some time before Drs. Adrian … Jones, Peter Tuddenham and Bill Nuttle could convince me to start posting … blogs. My blogs started in earnest in 2011 when I was on sabbatical at the … International Water Centre in Brisbane, Australia.

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As part of the 21st International Riversymposium, I presented a keynote talk entitled “Creating and communicating environmental intelligence“. Elements of environmental intelligence include the following: • The ability to acquire and apply environmental knowledge. • The collection of information of environmental value. • The ability to perceive your surroundings. The word ‘environment’ is derived from a French word ‘environ’, meaning surrounding.

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Throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, volunteer monitoring groups collect and assess important water quality and benthic macroinvertebrate data. Thanks to the hard work of the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, many valuable resources, including methods manuals and factsheets, provide groups guidance in ensuring the quality-and therefore value-of their data.

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Let us start this blog by saying that whenever … we travel to India, we are met with the warmest of hospitality from our … colleagues at the National … Center for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM). Dr Ramesh … Ramachandran, Dr Purvaja Ramachandran, Dr Ajit Pattnaik, and their wonderful team … always go above and beyond to ensure we have a wonderful and rich experience. So, thank you NCSCM!

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This blog post is the first of a two-post series examining cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus) history and ecology in the Chesapeake Bay. In 2007, an article appeared in the reputable scientific journal Science asserting that declines in large shark populations along the eastern coast of the United States had led to an “explosion” of rays and skates due to lack of predation.

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The Arctic Ocean, its surrounding land masses, and the people and animals that depend on arctic ecosystems are changing rapidly. Global climate change is particularly acute in the arctic, with large scale biophysical changes evident, leading to ecological and social impacts. One of the Collaborative Research Actions (CRA) initiatives by the Belmont Forum is addressing the changing arctic.

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Every fall, the American Geophysical Union hosts the largest meeting of Earth and space scientists from around the world for a week of workshops, presentations, field trips, networking events, and so much more. Rumored to have had more than 27,000 attendees this year, it’s an impressively large and exciting conference, overflowing with opportunities to learn, share, and network.

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