The Patuxent River is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed is home to protected wetlands, bald eagles, valuable local history, and a growing population of residents. UMCES aims to produce a report card assessing social, economic, and environmental conditions in and around the Patuxent, with the goal of engaging members of the community to preserve and restore this essential Maryland river.

The Integration and Application Network (IAN) has been working with the Harte Research Institute (HRI) since 2012 with the long-term goal of establishing a report card for the Gulf of Mexico. In 2019, we published the first Texas Coast Ecosystem Health Report Card as a significant first step towards this goal.

The Coastal Ocean Assessment for Sustainability and Transformation (COAST) Card is a transnational and transdisciplinary research program funded through the Belmont Forum, a consortium of research funders that have targeted funds towards research that engages stakeholders into a co-design and co-development process, to foster solutions to global sustainability challenges. The project brings together researchers from the United States, Philippines, Norway, India, and Japan.

Do you want to “change the conversation” and guide society toward solutions for complex resilience and sustainability challenges that benefit present and future generations? This Professional Certificate program is comprised of four knowledge-rich courses including: Strategic Communication for Sustainability Leaders, Storytelling with Data Using Socio-environmental Report Cards, The Science Advisory Toolbox for Environmental Management, and Innovative Environmental Management Models:

Translation of scientific research into accessible documents is relevant to USGS’s overall mission and goals but specifically germane to the Chesapeake Bay science and restoration community. The Chesapeake Bay Program partnership, in which the USGS plays a key role, is working toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

UMCES received accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. As part of the accreditation process, UMCES needs to assess and communicate its goals better. The Institutional Assessment evaluates how successful UMCES is at meeting its goals of scientific research, public service, and education. We will do this by working through the 5-step report card process and producing a report card-like assessment for public consumption.

Incorporating novel indicators into the Chesapeake Bay Report Card. Make key improvements to the Chesapeake Bay Report Card, which has served since 2006 as the definitive source for ecosystem health status in the Bay and tidal tributaries.

IAN has teamed up with Belmont Forum members to design and faciltate meetings as well as produce communication tools. We are developing surveys, create meeting materials and agendas, generating templates and videos, and distributing summary documents to achieve programmatic goals and focus efforts to further the success of the Belmont Forum.

This report card was produced in December 2015 by The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and represents a joint effort of graduate students and faculty in the Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences program at the Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg and the Integration and Application Network. The report card provides an assessment of stream health in the Upper Potomac Headwaters region upstream of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

WWF and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences seek to empower stakeholders around the world to develop and effectively use credible, locally owned report cards in their basins, fostering sustainable water management across basins around the world.