Early ecosystem health report cards focused on assessing the health of natural ecosystems, producing a “snapshot” of ecosystem health at one point in time. Ecosystem health report cards are used to guide efforts that improve ecosystem health through natural resources manage- ment and stakeholder engagement. Common themes among Report Cards include water quality and quantity and habitat. These indicators are not strictly environmental concerns, though.

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The Tripartite Valorization Workshop was convened by the Belmont Forum and facilitated by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Washington DC on 8-10 December 2018. It served as the-end term meeting for the Food Security and Land Use Change Collaborative Research Action (CRA), and mid-term meetings for the Arctic Observing and Science for Sustainability and Mountains as Sentinels of Change CRAs.

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This booklet provides an overview on the Belmont Forum including its history and structure. Within the booklet you can learn about The Belmont Challenge and how to become a member. Readers can also learn about current and past projects as well as the current members and partners of the Belmont Forum.

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Developed in partner with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as part of the Healthy Rivers for All initiative, the Practitioner's Guide to Developing Basin Report cards is a reference and resource for the user– government or non-profit employees, development officials, basin managers, private sector representatives, community organizers, academics, journalists, and any and all interested in the health and future of freshwater resources.

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Chronic seasonal low oxygen condition (hypoxia) occurs in the deep waters of Chesapeake Bay as a result of eutrophication-induced phytoplankton blooms and their subsequent decomposition. Summertime hypoxia has been observed in Chesapeake Bay for over 80 years, with scientific attention and understanding increasing substantially during the past several decades after rigorous and routine monitoring programs were put in place.

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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 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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Assessment of natural resource condition within Shenandoah National Park was carried out using the National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program Vital Signs ecological monitoring framework. The park was categorized into six reporting areas based on two altitudes and three major geology types underlying Shenandoah National Park. Thirty-one metrics were analyzed for 14 indicators grouped into four categories:

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The development of the first Ecosystem Health Report Card for Laguna de Bay, the largest in-land body of water in the Philippines, was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and jointly implemented by the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia Resource Facility (PRF) and the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA).

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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.

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