Heath Kelsey, Simon Costanzo and I traveled to Brisbane, Australia to participate in the International Riversymposium. One of the things I most appreciate about the Riversymposium is the overall quality of the plenary talks, and this year’s symposium was no exception. The major theme of this year’s Riversymposium was the ten-year anniversary of the Brisbane Declaration on the importance of environmental flows.

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As the 2017 Riversymposium approached, which is also the twentieth Riversymposium, I began to reminisce about the various symposia that I have attended ever since 1998. Bill Dennison talking at the River Symposium. The first line from the first album, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles kept repeating in my mind: “It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the Band to play . .

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I traveled to Darwin, the Capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia, in order to work with the Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee on developing a vision for an integrated report card for Darwin Harbour. Karen Gibb, Charles Darwin University professor and chair of the Darwin Harbour Advisory Committee, hosted my visit.

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After the afternoon talks ended at the aquarium and before drinks and dinner began, the Tennessee River Basin Network (TRBN) and UMCES held a short session on the Tennessee River report card. We were happy with the high attendance at our session and the progress we made during it. I started the session off with a spoken version of a song, adapted from the Chattanooga Choo Choo swing band song from 1941. The lyrics are as follows: The Chattanooga Choo Choo.

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A large contingent from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) participated in the Tennessee River Basin Network (TRBN) annual meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee on 15-16 Aug 2017. The contingent included Heath Kelsey, Dylan Taillie and Bill Dennison from the UMCES Integration and Application Network and Andrew Elmore and Eric Davidson from UMCES Appalachian Laboratory.

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What makes a port city iconic? Geography, history, sense of place, water everywhere, economic engines, melting pots and vistas. My first visit to Rio de Janeiro convinced me to include this harbor city in my short list of iconic global ports. My previous personal list for amazing harbor cities was the following: New York City in the United States of America (USA), San Francisco in the USA, Sydney in Australia, and Cape Town in South Africa.

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Environmental literacy principles for the Tuul River, Mongolia … • The Tuul River in northcentral Mongolia is a tributary to the Orkhon River. The Orkhon River flows through Lake Baikal, Russia via the Selenga River and into the Yenesei River, which is the largest tributary into the Arctic Ocean. • Water from the Tuul River is heavily utilized, mostly for domestic and industrial use in their capital, Ulaanbaatar.

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Training Mongolians to Develop a Tuul River Report Card … After our field trip, Simon Costanzo, Michele Thieme and I held a two and a half day workshop in Ulaanbaatar, working closely with WWF Mongolia and key stakeholders in order to develop the skills and strategies needed to create a Tuul River report card. We structured the workshop around the five steps of report card development: Conceptualization, Choose indicators, Determine thresholds, Calculate scores and Communicate results.

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Downstream Tuul River … On the second day of field trips before our Tuul River report card workshop, we headed downstream to visit two mines: one recently built with a history of environmental protections, the other an old soviet mine with no apparent environmental regulation.

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From July 2nd- 4th, 2017, Simon Costanzo, Michele Thieme and I took a day to walk around the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator) and two days on driving tours to see both upstream and downstream sections of the Tuul River. This blog installment provides the first part of a synopsis of these field trips in anticipation of our Tuul River report card workshop. Ulaanbaatar … Ulaanbaatar centers around a large public square. Behind this square is Parliament House.

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