Rock Creek Park is one of the largest forested urban parks in the United States, containing a wide variety of natural, historical, and recreational features in the midst of Washington, D.C. The majority of the 3,000 acre park surrounds the lower watershed of Rock Creek and its tributaries as the drainage drops from the Piedmont Plateau to the Coastal Plain.

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Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts is the only National Park dedicated to the performing arts. Performance structures on the 130 acre property include a 7,000-person main stage. The park includes protected stream, meadow, and forest patches in the urban Washington, DC landscape. Noise from the Dulles Toll Road threatens the primary function of the park as a performance venue and is a major management concern.

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This brochure summarizes what are seagrasses, their role in the productivity of ecosystems, their importance to humans as well as a collection of fun facts.

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This report was published by the Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project with the support of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). It provides new assessment tools for coastal management programs and discusses the key science outputs of the project. Science communicators at IAN worked with authors and designers to create nine figures for the 40-page report.

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Monitoring water quality and determining nutrient inputs is essential to assess ecosystem health. Partnering with the Maryland Coastal Bays Program and the Department of Natural Resources, this study focused on four regions in Maryland's Coastal Bays. These regions, St Martins River, Public Landing, Johnson's Bay, and Chincoteague Island, were found to be nitrogen 'hotspots' by the 2004 water quality assessment study.

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This is a practical handbook on how to communicate science effectively. The first part is an introduction to the principles of science communication – what effective science communication is, why it is important, and how to do it. The principles in these chapters include how effective science communication can change societal paradigms and make one a better scientist.

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Knowing the condition of natural resources in national parks is fundamental to the National Park Service's (NPS) mission to maintain park resources "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Most parks are open systems vulnerable to threats such as air and water pollution and invasive species, which originate outside of the park's boundaries.

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Environmental management is not practiced in a vacuum. Effective stewardship of natural resources requires the adoption of multiple objectives set forth by diverse groups of stakeholders with varied perspectives and interests. Within this management landscape, integrated environmental assessments provide a useful framework for evaluating resources and directing management efforts.

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Seagrasses, marine flowering plants, have a long evolutionary history but are now challenged with rapid environmental changes as a result of coastal human population pressures. Seagrasses provide key ecological services, including organic carbon production and export, nutrient cycling, sediment stabilization, enhanced biodiversity, and trophic transfers to adjacent habitats in tropical and temperate regions.

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This is a practical handbook on how to communicate science effectively. The first part is an introduction to the principles of science communication-what effective science communication is, why it is important, and how effective science communication can change societal paradigms and make one a better scientist.

Read more