The following publications are available from http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/newpubs.html
The Economics of Invasive Species
Expand Your View: Insights for public communicators from behavioral research
Category Archives: news
Low impact development workshops being held throughout Oregon
Oregon Sea Grant Extension is partnering with the Oregon Environmental Council to offer a series of low impact development (LID) workshops for Oregon¹s growing communities. The goal is to expand the adoption of sustainable stormwater management practices that protect watersheds from urban runoff while reducing costs. The workshops will be of particular interest to builders, developers, designers, stormwater engineers, elected officials, jurisdictional staff, and other professionals.
For more information and registration, visit: http://www.oeconline.org/our-work/rivers/stormwater/low-impact-development/lid-workshops
Register now for Yamhill Water School
The Oregon Sea Grant Watershed Extension Team will present its first Oregon Water School April 17-18 in McMinnville. Programming includes a “Watersheds 101” introduction to core concepts, and a two-track series of classes on the topics of Water Quality and Watershed Stewardship, and Gardening and Landscape Practices. Students may register for an entire track, or choose sessions a la carte. Participants are eligible for certification credits toward the OSU Master Watershed Steward program, as well.
Friday’s Watershed 101 session will take place at the Church on the Hill, 700 North Hill Road, and Saturday’s at Linfield College. Costs range from $35 for a two-class half-day session to $80 for the entire two-day school. Preregistration is required for Watershed 101; single-day registrations will be available at the door, space permitting, for Saturday’s courses.
For more information and registration, visit: http://oregonstate.edu/conferences/waterschool2009/
Oregon Sea Grant’s Julie Howard publishes article about hypoxia
“In 2006, Oregon and Washington experienced the worst hypoxic event on record as near-shore oxygen levels dropped in some places to zero…”
So writes Julie Howard, Oregon Sea Grant program assistant, in the March/April 2009 edition of Oregon Coast magazine. Her article, “An Ocean without Oxygen,” goes on to describe some of the possible causes of hypoxia, the devastating effects, and how researchers and fishermen are collaborating to address the issue.
For more information about the hypoxia phenomenon, visit the Web site of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO).
Oregon Sea Grant researcher Jae Park wins award for “most cited” publication
The Japanese Society of Fisheries Sciences (JSFS) has awarded Oregon Sea Grant researcher Jae Park and his co-authors an Award of Excellence for their paper, “New approaches for the effective recovery of fish proteins and their physicochemical characteristics” (Y. S. Kim, J. W. Park, and Y. J. Choi, Fisheries Science 69(6), 1231-1239, 2003). The paper won the award for being JSFS’s “most cited” scientific paper over the past five years.
Park plans to travel to Japan to accept the award, which will be announced at the opening ceremony of the JSFS annual meeting at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (Shinagawa Campus), on March 29, 2009.
Along with diplomas of merit, Park and his co-authors will share a prize of 20,000 yen.
For more information about Jae Park and his work with the OSU Seafood Laboratory, visit his Web page.
Marine educator Bill Hanshumaker featured on BeachConnection.net
A day at the beach in Oregon can be a bit mind-bending. The Sci-Fi Channel could find lots to be inspired by here. The ocean and the shoreline environment are some of the most dynamic places on Earth, where things constantly change, sometimes in truly freaky ways.
Bill Hanshumaker, Public Marine Education Specialist with the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, is among the coastal experts featured in a BeachConnections.net article on strange things that can be found on Oregon’s beaches …
Rip Currents Could Play Role in Increased Coastal Erosion
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Amid growing concern about rising sea levels triggered by global warming, Oregon Sea Grant researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) are discovering that rip currents might play a role in coastal erosion because they create rip embayments, or low areas on sandy beaches, that expose nearby land to higher rates of erosion by wave activity.
Ocean acidification background from leading scientist
Some scientists consider it perhaps the most troubling effect of climate change on the ocean: increasing acidity caused by absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The potential implications, especially for the myriad of species that live in the ocean, could be dire, if current trends continue. But it’s a concern that only recently has begun to reach public attention, and many people may be uninformed or uncertain about the background science.
To help, three short video interview segments with a leading scientific authority, produced by Oregon Sea Grant. The interview is with Dr. Richard Feely, a senior scientist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle. Feely was the chief scientist on the North American Carbon Program West Coast Cruise in 2007, which established important baseline science. Feely is also active internationally as a member of the European Ocean Acidification International Scientific Advisory Panel.
In the clips, Feely addresses three essential questions about ocean acidification: what’s causing it; how it’s affecting ocean animals, and how it may affect ocean ecosystems. The succinct clips run from 1-3 minutes; Joe Cone was the interviewer and videographer; Steve Roberts edited.
Video clips
Communicating Climate Change: New Interviews
Communicating successfully about climate change involves both science and art, and our series of podcasts explores both, although the emphasis is on the insights of social scientists. Two new interviews reflect a continuing broadening of discussion to large-scale social and institutional frameworks that affect successful adaptation to climate change.
The interviewees are Elinor Ostrom, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, and Jesse Ribot, Social Dimensions of Environmental Policy, University of Illinois.
Hear them and previous interviewees at our podcast: Communicating Climate Change
Salmon resilience featured in online journal
Corvallis, Ore – Is there anything really new to be said about the prospects for salmon in the Pacific Northwest? Yes, says a group of experts, including several from Oregon State University (OSU); their new perspectives are collected in a special feature issue of the online journal Ecology and Society .
The special feature issue is titled “Pathways to Resilient Salmon Ecosystems”; access to the journal is free and open to the public.
Scientists, politicians, pundits and the public have been discussing the future of salmon since at least the 1870s, said Dan Bottom, an editor of the special issue and both a research fisheries biologist for NOAA Fisheries and courtesy faculty in the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife.