Chesapeake Bay Seminar Series Broadcasting Live
LIVE WEBCAST! The Chesapeake Bay Seminar Series, a monthly seminar in Annapolis hosted by IAN, is now broadcasting LIVE via the web. The webcast audience can listen to the seminar speaker's commentary, see their PowerPoint slides, and pose questions online! It’s a great option for anyone who wants to catch an IAN seminar, but can't be there in person.A Conceptual Basis for Natural Resource Monitoring
A 34 pp. booklet has been published by the IAN/National Park Service partnership focusing on developing an integrated assessment of the national parks in the region around Washington, D.C. All 11 parks of the National Park Service’s National Capital Region Network have shared resources, and nearly all the parks lie within the Potomac River watershed, which is experiencing some of the most rapid population growth and urban development in the country. The just-released report, "A Conceptual Basis for Natural Resource Monitoring", uses park-based conceptual diagrams to provide a geographic and spatial context for defining the natural resource challenges to the region as a whole and to the individual parks. This is the latest IAN publication for the National Capital Region Vital Signs project.
International Tidal Wetlands Conference
An International Tidal Wetlands Conference was held May 31-June 2, 2006 at Salisbury University in Maryland. IAN, partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Port Administration, and the MD Department of Natural Resources, held this conference to lay the groundwork for a possible marshland restoration project in the mid-Chesapeake Bay marshes. At the conference, engineers, ecologists, and economists came together to discuss the issues associated with using dredged materials to restore the eroding marshes of the Chesapeake Bay. Speakers from the Netherlands, Italy, and the U.S. presented findings from their research in different aspects of marsh restoration. The Corps and its partners will use the information gathered to generate a study plan and cost estimate for an environmental restoration feasibility study. This study plan will guide the Corps study process over the next 3 to 5 years. The plenary presentations are now available on the conference website.
Science communication course
June 7–8, 2006, the IAN group conducted the two day version of their "Science Communication and Integrated Assessment" course at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory. The participants included staff and students from MD DNR Fisheries Service, NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office, NOAA's National Ocean Service, and the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory.
New Intern and Summer Students
IAN welcomes Lisa Florkowski, Allison Dungan, and Kate Boicourt. Lisa Florkowski will be entering the Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences graduate program this autumn. She graduated from the University of Virginia and has been working in the private sector before joining IAN. Lisa will be working on the National Capital Region Vital Signs project to help in the synthesis of biological data to develop conceptual models/diagrams that effectively communicate the results of monitoring efforts within the National Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring Program. Allison Dungan joins IAN as a summer student and will be working on a project to assess nitrogen sources into the Maryland Coastal Bays, following on from a study conducted by IAN staff in 2004. She is also significantly expanding our online Image Library. Allison will be a senior at Randolph-Macon College this autumn. Kate Boicourt is a summer student with the EcoCheck team at the Cooperative Oxford Laboratory, working primarily on the National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment (NEEA) project. Kate recently graduated from Kenyon College.