A Mississippi River Report Card Supports Integrated River Basin Management

Water Supply

Flood Control and Risk Reduction

Economy

Environment

Recreation

Transportation

Heath Kelsey Bill Dennison

Bill Nuttle Jordy Jordahl

America’s Watershed Initiative

• Diverse management objectives • Holistic instead of issue-based advocacy

Steering committee represents diverse perspectives

River Symposium 2013

• Upper Mississippi River Basin Association

• Big River Coalition • Mississippi River Commission • US Army Corps of Engineers • City of Dubuque, Iowa • State of Wyoming • Upper Missouri Basin • Lower Mississippi River Basin • Ingram Barge Company • Mississippi Valley Flood Control

Association • The Nature Conservancy • Caterpillar Inc. • Ohio River Basin Alliance • Iowa Soybean Association

• Industry, Agriculture, River Management, Ecology, Federal, State, and Municipal representation,

• Multi-year exploration of goals and values • Americas Watershed Initiative Summit 2012, St Louis

Identified Six Broad Management Goals

Maintain supply of abundant, clean water Water Supply

Flood Control and Risk Reduction

Economy

Environment

Recreation

Transportation

Provide reliable flood control and risk reduction

Support local, state, and national economies

Support and enhance healthy and productive ecosystems

Provide world-class recreational opportunities

Serve as the nations most valuable transportation corridor

Report Card project initiated in 2012

• Assess and communicate status of achieving six goals

• Balanced assessment of social, economic, and environmental information

Balanced evaluation of social, economic, and environmental information is an important advance in integrated assessment

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science engaged to develop report card process

UMCES developed a 5-step process for report card assessments

Collaborative development of a regional approach

Focus on stakeholder engagement • Regional perspectives • Regionally specific results

integrated into overall score

Workshops seek regional information

Workshops seek regional information

Specific input on: • Conceptualization • Indicators for each goal • Data and thresholds • Scoring methods • Communication

Workshop engagement

• Over 200 direct participants in workshops • Representing diverse organizations

• Napoleon’s March • Graphic of participation

Completed meetings in each basin and in Washington, DC

Workshop engagement

Over 200 direct participants and still growing

Workshop engagement

Diverse representation

Workshop reports produced

Document progress and decisions • Conceptualizations • Indicators • Data sources • Assessment methods

Core indicators identified

Common elements found in each basin

Making progress toward completion

• Completing data analysis

• Summit September 30 in Louisville, KY

AWI Summit 2014

http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/awi/

ian.umces.edu

More information

umces.edu greatriverspartnership.org

americaswatershed.org

More information: hkelsey@umces.edu