An eye-opening approach to developing and communicating integrated environmental assessments
![Paper first page](https://ian.umces.edu/site/assets/files/13036/an-eye-opening-approach-to-developing-and-communicating-integrated-environmental-assessments.200x0.png)
IAN staff Bill Dennison, Tim Carruthers, and Jane Hawkey worked with UMCES faculty Todd Lookingbill and Shawn Carter from the National Park Service to write this recently published paper (
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5(6): 307-314). The paper presents a practical framework for promoting successful ecosystem management by using diverse visual elements to facilitate communication between scientists, managers, and the public. The paper concludes that: 1) the process of developing and communicating integrated ecosystem assessments creates common ground between multiple stakeholders and is as important as the products themselves; 2) once generated, visual elements (photos, maps, graphs, conceptual diagrams) create a valuable resource that can be used in many formats; 3) visual elements are a widely understandable format for synthesized information; and 4) conceptual diagrams are a powerful tool that can be used to link key ecosystem features, major threats, and environmental indicators.