The four Thiess International Riverprize finalists provided inspirational examples of creative solutions for river protection and restoration. The winner of the 2014 Riverprize was the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine, a group of committed and passionate individuals who have transformed the "Sewer of Europe" into a river with high water quality, migratory fish and restored floodplains. There were four very worthy finalists for the 2014 International Riverprize:

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During our ten-year stint at the University of Queensland, we were fortunate to have access to high quality on-campus child care. This child care was a decisive factor in maintaining dual careers for my wife Judy O'Neil and for me. As well, our children developed lifelong friendships at the two child care facilities: Munro Centre (ages 0-3) and Campus Kindy (ages 3-5).

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In order to kick off Phase 2 of the USAUS-H2O virtual environmental exchange program between eight high schools in Australia and eight high schools in the U.S., we held a teacher workshop in Canberra, Australia. Judy O'Neil, Simon Costanzo and I traveled to Canberra, the capital city of Australia where our partners from Charles Darwin University organized the workshop at the University House, Australian National University.

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Participating in the International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) 3rd Annual Conference, August 14-18 2014 at Glasgow, Scotland … Picturesque landscapes are all around in the Scottish Highlands … I traveled to the International Marine Conservation Congress' (IMCC) conference in Scotland in part because I wanted to visit Scotland - land of Scottish brogues, whisky, and wild, mountainous landscapes!

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I first heard the story of the salmon in the tree while visiting in Haida Gwaii this summer. Haida Gwaii is a set of islands along the northwest coast of North America that is home to the Haida people, one of several nations of the aboriginal people that have existed here for about 10,000 years. I am an engineer by training, and my traveling companions, my wife Lenore and friends Tom and Nancy, are scientists.

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I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri August 26, 2014 to facilitate a workshop in the Missouri River Basin, as part of the Mississippi River Report Card project with America’s Watershed Initiative. This meeting, held at the Kansas City Airport Hilton, was a follow-up to the May 23 meeting we had in Rapid City, South Dakota, where we got a good start on conceptualizing issues and concerns in the basin.

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Tracey Saxby and I traveled to Baton Rouge for a two-day training session for the Louisiana Sea Grant Discovery Integration and Application (LA DIA) scholars. Robert Twilley, Louisiana Sea Grant Director, and his staff helped us develop this training session.

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In conjunction with our work on the Long Island Sound embayment report cards, I was invited to speak about report cards at the first annual Connecticut Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Conference. The conference was held on July 25th, 2014 at Goodwin College. The organizers of the conference were Jacqueline Talbot with the Connecticut River Watershed Council and Meghan Ruta with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).

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Understanding resilience to climate change effects is critical to the future of environmental assessment and reporting. Changing air and water temperature, precipitation patterns and storm frequencies, CO2 concentrations, and sea level rise will add significant pressure to the natural and engineered systems that provide us services. Understanding system resilience to these changes is important to developing relevant monitoring, assessment, and reporting frameworks.

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Alex Fries and I had the chance to represent UMCES at the Conference on Ecosystem and Ecological Restoration (CEER) on the New Orleans riverfront from July 28 to August 1, 2014. I presented on our … Alex Fries at the UMCES booth … CEER Conference a good venue for the Mississippi Report Card … There could not have been a more appropriate location to talk about a report card for the Mississippi River than New Orleans, Louisiana this July.

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