The National Oil Spill Commission, tasked by President Obama, to determine the root causes of the April 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and to make recommendations on how to prevent such disasters in the future. Contracted by the Oil Spill Committee Action group, the staff at IAN worked closely with them to design and layout this important report.

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Local watershed monitoring groups use different methods for data analysis and reporting, which results in data that are of variable quality and report cards that are challenging to compare. This project seeks to create uniform sampling and data analysis protocols for non-tidal indicators, by developing consensus among members of the Mid-Atlantic Tributary Assessment Coalition (MTAC).

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In partnership with the University of South Carolina and SECOORA, we first developed a mobile app that displays predictions of water quality at 31 locations along the beach at Myrtle Beach, SC. Daily predictions are created using statistical models that incorporate data from remote sensing and ocean observing system sensors.

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Native to the Gulf of Mexico, Karenia brevis is a toxic dinoflagellate that blooms almost annually off the west coast of Florida. K. brevis blooms are not a new phenomenon on the west Florida shelf, and ships' logs suggest bloom-related events (fish kills) dating back to the 1500s. Coastal regions of Florida have experienced some of the most rapid population growth and development in the United States.

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The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is a regional organisation established by the governments and administrations of the Pacific region to look after its environment. For this project, IAN partnered with SPREP to create a graphics rich summary of a technical report detailing the cost-benefit analysis of ecosystem-based adaptation and engineering options for Lami Town, in Fiji.

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Conservation International is a worldwide non-profit dedicated to preserving and conserving the natural world using an integrated approach of natural and social sciences. For this project, IAN has partnered with Conservation International to develop a 12-page booklet focused on Bay of Bengal (BOB) Marine Protected Areas (MPA), drawing from knowledge of MPAs in the region.

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The CoastSmart Communities Initiative (CCI), a program within the Maryland Department of Natural Resource’s Chesapeake and Coastal Service and staffed by IAN, is helping local communities identify and implement strategies to protect life, property, and natural resources vulnerable to coastal hazards such as storm surge, shoreline erosion, coastal flooding, and climate change.

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In partnership with the Southeast Coast Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) and the University of South Carolina, IAN automated and improved the accuracy of beach advisory decision making for Myrtle Beach South Carolina. The improvements resulted from integrating information from Ocean Observing Systems and radar-based rainfall data from the National Weather Service to improve bacteria concentration predictions.

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For this project, IAN staff collaborated with the authors of a UNEP publication, "Taking Steps toward Marine and Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management - An Introductory Guide." Our role was to produce several key conceptual diagrams for the publication: to help define the five core elements of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM), it's geographic scope, and to illustrate how planning with an ecosystem perspective works.

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The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, along with its partners Harwell Gentile & Associates, LC, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, proposes to develop a comprehensive framework for a Report Card on the health of the Gulf of Mexico.

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