IAN is committed to producing practical, user-centered communications that foster a better understanding of science and enable readers to pursue new opportunities in research, education, and environmental problem-solving. Our publications synthesize scientific findings using effective science communication techniques.

Exploring Everglades ecosystem health (Page 1)

Exploring Everglades ecosystem health

Alexandra Fries, Bill Nuttle, Caroline Donovan, Emily Nastase, Heath Kelsey ·
5 May 2017

This newsletter describes the results from the first workshop to develop the Everglades Report Card and provides a roadmap for the future of this project. Members of the RECOVER (REstoration COordination VERification) team met with the Integration and Application Network to begin work on the Everglades Report Card and 2019 System Status Report. This workshop, held in West Palm Beach, Florida, took a system-wide view and is the first of four workshops to create these two documents.

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Tidal water quality indicator factsheets (Page 1)

Tidal water quality indicator factsheets

Caroline Donovan, Suzanne Webster, Alexandra Fries ·
18 April 2017

The Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC), as part of the Indicator Effectiveness Matrix objective, produced 12 factsheets describing 14 tidal water quality indicators. These indicators are part of the CMC's tidal water quality Quality Assurance Project Plan and Method Manuals. The factsheets are intended for nontraditional and volunteer monitoring groups to include as part of their water quality monitoring programs as education materials for their volunteers.

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Researchers and stakeholders address coastal vulnerability and freshwater security (Page 1)

Researchers and stakeholders address coastal vulnerability and freshwater security

Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey, Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen, Emily Nastase, Jamie Currie ·
3 April 2017

The Belmont Forum is a consortium of research funders that have targeted funds toward research that actively integrates stakeholders into a co-design/co-development process with researchers. It is committed to fostering solutions to global sustainability challenges through innovative transdisciplinary research.

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“This is your shield… this is your estuary” Building community and coastal resilience to a changing Louisiana coastline through restoration of key ecosystem functions (Page 1)

“This is your shield… this is your estuary” Building community and coastal resilience to a changing Louisiana coastline through restoration of key ecosystem functions

Carruthers TJB, Hemmerling SA, Barra M, Saxby TA, Moss L ·
30 March 2017

The coastal communities of Louisiana are highly vulnerable to coastal change, and the potential benefits of protecting, restoring, and enhancing intact ecosystems are particularly important. However, there is a current lack of synthesized information on potential benefits of ecosystem-based restoration options at a parish, basin, or coastwide scale.

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Report cards and system dynamics modelling (Page 1)

Report cards and system dynamics modelling

Simon Costanzo, Bill Dennison, Alexandra Fries, Heath Kelsey, Dave Nemazie, Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen, Emily Nastase ·
23 March 2017

This newsletter summarizes the outcomes of a workshop exploring the linkages and potential benefits of combining river basin health report cards and system dynamics modelling. These two approaches have traditionally been utilized separate from each other, however merging the two will lead to better management of the world's river basins.

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Building community and coastal resilience to a changing Louisiana coastline through restoration of key ecosystem functions (Page 1)

Building community and coastal resilience to a changing Louisiana coastline through restoration of key ecosystem functions

This is your shield... this is your estuary

Carruthers TJB, Hemmerling SA, Barra M, Saxby TA, Moss L ·
1 March 2017

The coastal communities of Louisiana are highly vulnerable to coastal change, yet the population has remained steady in the midst of highly dynamic environmental, social, and economic conditions. Adaptations in the form of social networks, mobility, and ingenuity have enabled Louisiana’s coastal communities to remain viable, although changed over time. Much of Louisiana’s coastal zone is outside of the current system of hard infrastructure (primarily levee) protection.

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Ecological Drought in the Southeast United States (Page 1)

Ecological Drought in the Southeast United States

Brianne Walsh, Simon Costanzo, Bill Dennison ·
24 February 2017

The Department of the Interior Climate Science Centers (CSCs) and their managing organization, the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey, have chosen the emerging climate science field of Ecological Drought as a research focus area. This newsletter highlights the outcomes of a two-day workshop held in Raleigh, North Carolina as part of a series of meetings at each of the nation’s eight CSCs.

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Improving riverine constituent concentration and flux estimation by accounting for antecedent discharge conditions (Page 1)

Improving riverine constituent concentration and flux estimation by accounting for antecedent discharge conditions

Zhang Q, Ball WP ·
2017

Regression-based approaches are often employed to estimate riverine constituent concentrations and fluxes based on typically sparse concentration observations. One such approach is the recently developed WRTDS (“Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season”) method, which has been shown to provide more accurate estimates than prior approaches in a wide range of applications.

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Numerical and Qualitative Contrasts of Two Statistical Models for Water Quality Change in Tidal Waters (Page 1)

Numerical and Qualitative Contrasts of Two Statistical Models for Water Quality Change in Tidal Waters

Beck MW and Murphy RR ·
2017

Two statistical approaches, weighted regression on time, discharge, and season and generalized addi- tive models, have recently been used to evaluate water quality trends in estuaries. Both models have been used in similar contexts despite differences in statistical foundations and products. This study provided an empirical and qualitative comparison of both models using 29 years of data for two discrete time series of chlorophyll-a (chl-a) in the Patuxent River estuary.

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