On October 14, 2015, in St. Louis, Missouri, I unveiled the Report Card for the Mississippi River Watershed, a project that almost everyone on the IAN Science Communication team has worked on at some point since 2012. The event was on the roof top patio of at the Hyatt Regency at the Arch in Downtown St. Louis, with great views of the river and the St. Louis Arch.

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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) Our partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was officially launched at World Water Week this past August 2015. This new partnership aims to widen the audience and uptake of report cards as an environmental management tool for river basins around the world.

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In September, Simon Costanzo, Bill Dennison, and I had the opportunity to travel to Fairbanks, Alaska for a workshop focusing on the topic of ecological drought in the State of Alaska. The Department of the Interior Climate Science Centers (CSCs) and their managing organization, the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey, have chosen the emerging climate science field of ecological drought as a research focus area.

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Caroline Donovan and I were invited to speak at the joint meeting of the Long Island Sound’s Citizens Advisory (CAC) and Science and Technical Advisory Committees (STAC). After completing the Long Island Sound Report Card in June, they asked us to give some wrap up and next steps information for where the report card is going in the future. Overall, the Long Island Sound report card included water quality, human health, and ecosystem/habitat indicators.

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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) On September 21st, 2015, Simon Costanzo and I traveled to San Jose de Guaviare, Colombia for the Guaviare River Report Card Workshop. This was the third workshop in Colombia to develop report cards for three tributaries of the Orinoco River.

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Heath Kelsey, Caroline Donovan, and I traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii to conduct a workshop to kick off the development of a report card for the coral reefs of American Samoa.

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Coastal scientists have an important role helping communities become more resilient by telling people what changes can be expected from climate change and sea level rise. But, how can you tell people about change that is coming, in a way that makes it tangible for people and motivates them to act, when the extent of that change goes beyond what many can even imagine.

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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) On August 9th, 2015, Simon Costanzo and I traveled from Bogota, Colombia to Puerto Carreño, Vichada, Colombia for the Bita River Report Card Workshop. This was the second of three workshops that will occur in Colombia, to develop report cards for three tributaries of the Orinoco River.

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Caroline Donovan and I participated in the Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Monitoring Conference in Winchester, Virginia last month. This conference focused on volunteer monitoring efforts in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia. The theme was bridging the water quality data gap, and the way to do this proposed as expansion and improvement of volunteer monitoring efforts.

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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) On June 29th, 2015, Simon Costanzo and I traveled from Bogota, Colombia to Puerto Lopez, Colombia for the Meta River Report Card Workshop. The workshop spanned from June 30th-July 2nd, and was the first of three workshops that will occur in Colombia, to develop report cards for three tributaries of the Orinoco River.

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