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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The Integration and Application Network has been involved in a series of workshops in partnership with U.S. Geological Survey to identify and communicate drought impacts across regions of the United States. The latest of this series took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico on May 30-31, focusing on vulnerabilities and draught-related issues specific to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

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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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Towards the end of April and into the beginning of May, I took a trip up the East Coast to attend the 2018 Local Solutions: Eastern Climate Preparedness Conference in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire. The conference was one I had heard about somewhat serendipitously through the Bay Brief (a weekly newsletter produced by the Chesapeake Bay Program) and my mother around the same time.

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Last month I attended the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences conference at American University in Washington, D.C. from June 20-23. This organization serves scholars who research and teach sustainability and other environmental issues through interdisciplinary lenses, and seeks to advance the "scholarship of science in service to society and the environment." The selected theme of "Inclusion and Legitimacy" was centralized in the conference discourse and culture.

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An existential appeal to "Shake things up" in socioecological systems research … Earlier this month, I attended a three-day international symposium called "Boundary Spanning: Advances in Socio-Environmental Systems Research," which was hosted by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis.

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Rich Batiuk retired after 33 years at the Chesapeake Bay Program and many of his colleagues gathered at a party, hosted by Beth McGee, at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for a series of skits, songs, and speeches honoring Rich. There was a huge turnout. Bob Orth, Ken Moore, and I represented the Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) team that Rich has interacted with for three decades. We witnessed some amazing singing by Roy Hoagland, Emily Trentacoste and Matt Johnson.

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The Maryland state agencies initiated the inaugural "Maryland State of the Coast: Connecting People, Innovation and Opportunity" conference from May 21-23, 2018. This conference brought scientists, resource managers and practitioners together to discuss the coastal issues in Maryland. The conference was held at the Hyatt in Cambridge on the Choptank River. State of the Coast conference room during a break. Image credit James Currie. Bill Dennison and Don Boesch listening at the conference.

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In April, Emily Nastase and I had the opportunity to travel to Olympic Valley, California to attend River Rally 2018. River Rally, hosted annually by River Network, is a national conference for river and water champions. It brings together hundreds of people from across the United States and around the world who care about rivers and water issues. Participants this year included NGO staff and volunteers, academics, federal agencies, foundation representatives, and community leaders.

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