This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Don Boesch and I had lunch with our World Wildlife Fund colleagues Carter Roberts and Tom Dillon recently. Carter asked a question that a) we couldn’t answer immediately, and b) stimulated me to think about what makes our partnership unique.

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Conceptual cross-section diagrams are a new technique developed by the IAN symbol library, allows for a geographically accurate depiction of coastal waterways. The first use of these cross-section approach was for New York Harbor, developed because of the complex waterways, islands, bridges and tunnels in New York Harbor. Brianne Walsh created a series of multiple cross sections using east-west transects extending from New Jersey to Long Island.

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As part our two-day workshop with the South Central Climate Science Center to discuss ecological drought in March 2016, I have presented the following songs: Red River Valley … 29 Mar 2016 … William “Woody” Dennison … Come and develop adaptations, if you like me … Do not hasten to bid drought adieu … Just remember the Red River Valley … And the cultural richness that is true.

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Brianne Walsh organized a tour of the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma following our workshop with the South Central Climate Science Center in March 2016. The National Weather Service is part of NOAA, which operates the facility in a partnership with the University of Oklahoma. We were immediately impressed with the spacious interior atrium with a wall of large glass windows facing southwest.

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A one-day conference sponsored by the Harry Hughes Agro-Ecology Center and Town Creek Foundation was held at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club on 18 March 2016. This conference was originally scheduled earlier in the year, but it was snowed out. The venue on Kent Island was beautiful, with views of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. View of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club where the conference was held.

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As a participant of the EcoHealth Matrix workshop held at the Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi, Texas on 9-11 March 2016, I found myself in the unusual position of not being one of the organizers or facilitators. With all this extra time on my hands, I wrote a series of songs throughout the workshop.

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Judy O'Neil led the effort to write a synthesis paper about New York Harbor, as part of the Curriculum and Community Enterprise for Restoration Science (CCERS), a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project, focused on the expansion of concepts imbedded within the Billion Oyster Project. The paper will contribute to the World Harbour Project.

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As part of a workshop sponsored by the Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, we learned about the key values and major threats to the Texas coastal ecosystems. We did not include the offshore continental shelf in this assessment, so some iconic features like the flower garden coral reefs were not included. The environmental literacy principles for the Texas coast are the following:

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The long lost Gulf of Mexico Report Card project has been rekindled this week with a pilot project to create EcoHealth metrics for the Texas coast. We hope to scale this up to the rest of the Gulf next (including the parts in Mexico and Cuba).

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This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) The word democracy has its origins in a Greek word from the 5th century B.C. Democracy is formed by combining "demos" meaning "the people" with "kratia" meaning "power". Literally translated as power by the people, democracy is the foundation of the modern western political systems.

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