This April, I was fortunate to work with The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) China Program on options for assessing watershed health. The project, sponsored by the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau in Shaanxi Province, aims to develop a tool to assess the health of small watershed areas restored by the Bureau in Shaanxi Province. Shaanxi is located in Northwest China and is home to tributaries of the Yangtze River to the South and Yellow River to the north and east.

Read more

This April, I was fortunate to work with my Chinese colleagues and visit a number of locations along the Chishui River, a major tributary of the Yangtze River in China. This new project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, is aimed at strengthening the “River Chief” system and improving the overall health of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Read more

Aquanauts Bruce Nyden, Bill Dennison, Susan Williams and Chuck Gross (L-R) at Smithsonian Institution, Natural History Museum reception standing in front of Hydrolab display. The year was 1984. Ronald Reagan was running for President against Walter Mondale. The Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album topped the charts and Ghostbusters was the summer blockbuster movie.

Read more

The recent news that my good friend and colleague Susan Williams was killed in a car accident on her way to give a lecture felt like a punch to my stomach. I was amazed, but upon reflection, not surprised at the amount of deep sentiment that this news provoked with my colleagues. Susan was a wonderful colleague in many ways to many people. She was a great mentor to many students and provided real support and encouragement. Susan was also a leader and a great role model for women scientists.

Read more

As part of the Future Earth Coasts workshop in Cork, Ireland, I ended each day of the two and a half day workshop with a song. At the end of Day 1, the song I adapted was “Danny Boy,” a classic Irish folk song. I substituted the names of the co-chairs of Future Earth Coasts, Valerie Cummins from University College Cork and Bruce Glavovic from Massey University, New Zealand, for Danny Boy. The reference to Glenn is Glenn Page from SustainaMetrix.

Read more

Bill Dennison and I visited Cork, Ireland at University College Cork from March 26-28 to help facilitate a discussion among Regionals Seas Leadership, Future Earth Coasts, and United Nations Environment. Our goal was to help outline a new collaborative process to enhance the transition to more sustainable coasts.

Read more

On April 6th-7th, 2018, I attended the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society (AERS) annual spring conference in Rehoboth Beach, DE. AERs was the first estuarine scientific society created, and this conference marked the 70th anniversary of its founding. Citing a need for communication among associates in the coastal regions of the Chesapeake and Carolinas, the first AERS meeting was held in April 1949 in Morehead City, NC.

Read more

Report Card Training for WWF Zambia … Lusaka, Zambia February 24-26 2018 … The first report card project in Africa was kicked off in Lusaka, with a training workshop hosted by Chanda Kumwenda at WWF. Michele Thieme /(WWF US), Simon Costanzo, and I facilitated a four-day training workshop covering the 5 major steps to creating a report card for the Lower Kafue River. The final day was devoted to science communication.

Read more

In February 2018, Simon Costanzo, Michele Thieme and I travelled to Lusaka, Zambia to kick off a project to develop an ecosystem health report card for the Lower Kafue River Basin. We provided training for the WWF Zambia team on the report card creation process. I then traveled with the WWF team to Monze in the Southern Province to help the team facilitate first stakeholder workshop.

Read more

The 8th World Water Forum was held in Brasilia, the capitol of Brazil. It was the largest conference I ever attended, with extremely large delegations from Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Africa.

Read more