This blog post discusses the seminar given by Megan Ward of the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, at the IAN Seminar Series on September 28, 2010. The Nanticoke River conservation efforts have focused on protection, rather than restoration, reflecting its rural and relatively intact watershed. Megan made it clear that the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance was more interested in building partnerships than direct advocacy.

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This blog post discusses the seminar given by Andrew and Diana Muller at the IAN Seminar Series on August 31, 2010. Pierre Henkart noted that the Severn River had persistent anoxia between June and September which includes noticeable hydrogen sulfide and asked why the South River anoxia was not as pronounced or persistent. Andrew and Diana discussed the increased tidal flushing in the South River compared with the Severn River with its shallow and wide sill at the Severn mouth.

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The International RiverFoundation has a unique role in catalyzing groups of people around the world to achieve river restoration, protection and sustainable management. One way this catalytic role is achieved is through the celebration of exemplary case studies of positive outcomes, publicly acknowledged via the annual awarding of The International Riverprize and the Australian National Riverprize.

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Environmental news is typically bad news. It is focused on negative aspects of human impacts on the environment, and often accompanied with dire predictions about the future. This propensity for dire predictions has been called the 'Cassandra syndrome', referring to Cassandra from Greek mythology who was cursed with the ability to foretell the future but nobody would believe her warnings. There is a good book entitled "Believing Cassandra:

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Jean Bernard Léon Foucault, physicist, was born in Paris on September 18, 1819, and he died there on February 11, 1868. Foucault was a gifted experimentalist.

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This newsletter was interesting to put together, as it involved looking through hundreds of photographs of flood damage in the Moreton Bay watershed. Some of the photos were staggering. There were photos of tractors and automobiles crushed like small tin cans, a time sequence of water rising over a farm shed within minutes, streambeds stripped down to the bedrock, and tree roots exposed instead of being buried deep in soil.

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My university teaching experience has been quite varied. I have taught first year students in massive lecture halls, graduate students in small groups, and everything in between. At the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, we teach using an interactive video network. My attitude about the large lecture setting is that the students forget what I said shortly after I say it, and I forget what I said shortly after I say it.

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On Monday, I went to the University of Queensland to meet with a former student, Dr. Chris Roelfsema and his student Mitch Lyons. Chris and Mitch, who are part of Professor Stuart Phinn's remote sensing group, had worked up a seagrass risk map for Moreton Bay, based on light attenuation from the flood plume, bathymetry and knowledge of seagrass light requirements.

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The International WaterCentre, formed as a consortium of four Australian universities, offers a Master's degree program in water management. As part of the 18 month (full time) course, a field trip to North Stradbroke Island is included. I attended two of the three days, and led a field trip to the seagrass beds in One Mile Harbor, near the town of Dunwich. The Moreton Bay Research Station in Dunwich was used in the course.

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Along with the release of v6.0 of the IAN Symbol Libraries (see the blog announcement), IAN has developed a free online diagram creator. This tool allows users to create conceptual diagrams in their web browser without the need for expensive software. The diagrammer connects directly to our symbol library database so that users can search for symbols by keywords, browse the albums, select from an IAN project symbol set, or work from their lightbox collection.

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