A vision for the Gulf of Mexico Report Card

The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, has partnered with IAN and Harwell Gentile & Associates, LC, to develop a vision for a report card on the health of the Gulf of Mexico. The report card will be a graphical representation of the environmental condition of the Gulf that is scientifically based, widely accessible, and readily understandable by policy-makers, stakeholders, scientists, and, most importantly, the general public. The vision document uses birds and seagrass ecosystems as prototypes for two components of the report card. The Report Card prototype was unveiled on December 7 at the Gulf of Mexico Summit in Houston, TX. Next steps include engaging the science community to divide the Gulf into manageable components based on habitats, geographical and/or political boundaries, and develop metrics to assess each component.

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