Category Archives: publications

How-to guide can help gardeners restore natural water cycle

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Rain Garden GuideA new guide on building sunken-bed rain gardens to collect and filter runoff water can help Northwest homeowners learn how to redesign home landscapes to help protect rivers and streams.

Rain gardens can help restore the natural water cycle, according to Rob Emanuel and Derek Godwin of Oregon Sea Grant Extension at Oregon State University.

“As our landscapes became developed, rain falling on hard surfaces was directed to pipes, ditches and storm drains that route to streams or into stormwater sewer systems,” Emanuel said. “The result is too much water arriving in a short amount of time and carrying pollutants.”

Rain gardens work like a native forest, meadow or prairie.

“They capture and redirect stormwater from hard surfaces such as roof tops, driveways, parking lots and streets,” Godwin said. “Rain gardens help keep watersheds healthy by filtering out toxins before they pollute streams and lakes, and they can actually recharge aquifers by encouraging water to soak into the ground.”

The new 44-page illustrated guide, “Oregon Rain Garden Guide: Landscaping for Clean Water and Healthy Streams,” was written by Emanuel, Godwin and Candace Stoughton, who works for the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District.

Read more

Download the publication: [.pdf – 14 MB file] [HTML – 106 KB file, illustrations omitted]

Whale Watch Week is coming up

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Gray whaleVolunteers take their positions at state parks up and down the Oregon Coast next Saturday to help visitors look for migrating gray whales during the annual Winter Whale Watch Week, Dec. 26-Jan. 1.

The program, launched by Oregon Sea Grant’s Don Giles in 1978 and now coordinated by the Oregon State Parks and Recreation’s Depoe Bay Whale Center, draws thousands of winter visitors to the coast each year, armed with binoculars in hopes of spotting some of the giant marine mammals as they migrate south to their  breeding grounds off Mexico’s Baja California.

To learn more about whales and their migrations before you head to the coast, download the free Sea Grant publication, Gray Whales, from our Web site, in English and Spanish language versions, as a printable .pdf or a fast-loading text version. Also available: A Watching Whales fact sheet with tips for spotting the animals – and how to tell a whale spout from a wave –  is also available.

When you need to warm up, stop by OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Visitor Center, open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. every day of Whale Watch Week except Jan. 1  with special programs and activities, including a daily marine mammal program in Hennings Auditorium featuring hands-on baleen, skulls and other whale “biofacts”.  The Center is also a great place to find out where whales are being seen – they’ll be keeping a running list of reported sightings and locations.

For more information, including a list of parks where volunteers will be stationed, visit the Whale Spoken Here Web site.

New publication reveals perceptions and opinions of climate change

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SARP-survey-report-cover-bl

A new publication from Oregon Sea Grant, An Analysis of a Survey of Oregon Coast Decision Makers Regarding Climate Change, reveals that

• most people are concerned about climate change and how it may affect the Oregon coast
• the most frequently cited risks associated with effects of climate change on the Oregon coast involved physical processes such as sea-level rise and erosion
• few are ready now to respond to climate change
• people would be willing to take action in work if there were compelling information, new funding, and a sense of local urgency
• coastal professionals have needs for assistance regarding climate change, particularly credible, relevant information to provide the public
• coastal professionals have low amounts of information on climate change topics they consider important for the performance of their work

You can order this 20-page publication (color cover, B&W insides) for $3.50 plus shipping and handling by calling 541-737-4849 or e-mailing sea.grant.communications@oregonstate.edu. You may also download it from http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs.html#socialsci

NOAA highlights Oregon Sea Grant’s work on climate change communications

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It is a common belief that if coastal resource managers and other communicators could just provide the public with information, people would take appropriate actions. But social scientists conducting research for the past 50 years have found this assumption riddled with misconceptions and are shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior.

—”Helping Managers Communicate Climate Change in Oregon,” Coastal Services magazine, September/October 2009

Among those who are “shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior,” particularly with regard to climate change, is Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant. Cone believes that “understanding more about how social science relates to climate science will help us all do our work better and help communities prepare.”

In addition to the Coastal Services article, Cone’s work in this field is featured in several Oregon Sea Grant publications and podcasts.

Another El Nino year

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El Nino graphicWith last week’s NOAA announcement that El Niño is back, scientists, resource managers and coastal dwellers are preparing for a winter of increasing storm activity and potentially diminished ocean productivity in the Pacific – but a possibly milder-than-average Atlantic hurricane season and potentially beneficial rain in the arid American southwest.

El Niño, or the southern oscillation, is a climate phenomenon that occurs every two to five years and has significant effects on global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries. While its relative frequency makes El Niño among the most-studied and better-understood large-scale phenomena among climate scientists, it can be a mystery to the rest of us.

Oregon Sea Grant can help unravel that mystery through its short publication, El Niño. Profusely illustrated and written for lay audiences, the eight-page, color publication explains how ocean currents, wind and weather patterns come together in the Equatorial Pacific to create El Niño conditions that affect weather and fisheries from South America to Alaska.

El Niño can be downloaded free of charge from the Oregon Sea Grant Web site:

For more in-depth information, visit NOAA’s El Niño page.

Oregon Sea Grant wins two awards

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apex09Oregon Sea Grant has won an Apex “Award of Excellence” for Hold that Thought: Questioning Five Common Assumptions about Communicating with the Public, written by Joe Cone, edited by Rick Cooper, and designed by Patricia Andersson. The Apex Awards, now in their 21st year, recognize “excellence in publications work by professional communicators.” There were 3,785 entrants. Hold that Thought is available for free download at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/onlinepubs.html#socialsci

eco-2009In addition, On the Lookout for Aquatic Invaders won an Award of Excellence (first prize in its category, “Environmental Design and Illustration-Special Publications”) in the 2009 ECO Awards, “a competition recognizing and honoring excellence in the environmental communications field,” sponsored by Global Environmental Communications, LLC. This publication was developed by Scott Wiedemer and Sam Chan, edited by Rick Cooper, and designed by Stefania Padalino and Patricia Andersson. You can view an excerpt of the publication at http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/themes/invasives/index.html#onthelookout

West Coast research needs report is online

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The efforts of three years and  people in three states have culminated in the release this week of a new report detailing the major regional marine research and information needs of Oregon, Washington and California.

West Coast Regional Marine Research and Information Needs, produced by the four Sea Grant programs in the three West Coast states, grew out of three years public meetings, surveys and analysis. More than 1,000 stakeholders, representing community, business, research and agency interests, took part in identifying those needs.

Sea Grant collaborators analyzed thousands of stakeholder comments and sorted the needs into eight categories:

  • Vitality of Coastal Communities and Maritime Operations
  • Ocean and Coastal Governance and Management of Multiple Uses
  • Fisheries and Aquaculture
  • Marine Ecosystem Structure and Function
  • Ocean Health and Stressors
  • Physical Ocean Processes, Related Climate Change, and Physical Coastal Hazards
  • Water Quality and Pollution
  • Resilience and Adaptability to Hazards and Climate Change

Cutting across those topics are three themes:  climate change, marine education and literacy, and access to information and data.

The project, funded by NOAA as part of a nationwide effort to identify and set priorities for future research, is closely aligned with the West Coast Governors’ Agreement on Ocean Health.

Read more and download a copy of the report …

New federal climate change report available online

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NOAA Climate Change coverA new report from the nation’s top science agencies, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” is available in full and in summary from the US Global Change Research Program Web site.

The report, released yesterday by presidential science advisor John Holdren and NOAA director Jane Lubchenco, represents an unprecedented multi-agency summary of the science and the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future. It focuses on climate change impacts in different regions of the U.S. – including the Pacific Northwest – and on various aspects of society and the economy.

“This report demonstrates that climate change is happening now, in our own backyard, and it affects the things that people care about,” Lubchenco said.

A printable .pdf fact sheet summarizes what the Northwest can expect from changing climate, including rising sea levels, further stresses on salmon and other coldwater fish, and reduced water supplies due to declining winter snow packs.

For more information about the scientific and cultural challenges posed by a changing climate, visit Oregon Sea Grant’s Climate Change page.

Oregon Sea Grant’s “Oregon Coast Quests” featured in magazine

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“Some call it a treasure hunt, but Quest coordinator Cait Goodwin, a marine educator with Oregon Sea Grant at ocmagcovermayjune09Newport’s Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC), is quick to point out that the Quest Box at the end is not a treasure chest.”

So writes Julie Howard, Oregon Sea Grant program assistant, in the May/June 2009 edition of Oregon Coast magazine. Her article, “Oregon Coast Quests,” explains what Quests are and where to find them, and describes the experience of going on an actual Quest.

For more information about Oregon Coast Quests, call 541-867-0100 or visit the program’s Web site.

Oregon Sea Grant wins four awards in international competition

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hermes-logo6Oregon Sea Grant has won four awards – two Platinums, a Gold, and an Honorable Mention – in the international Hermes Creative Awards 2009 competition.

On the Lookout for Aquatic Invaders won a Platinum in the Design/Publication Overall category; Boats of the Oregon Coast was awarded Platinum for Publications/Handbook; Oregon Sea Grant Program Report 2007 earned a Gold for Video/Internal Communication; and Oregon Sea Grant Publications & Videos 2008 received an Honorable Mention in Publications/Catalog.

The Hermes Creative Awards, named for the ancient Greek messenger, is “an international competition for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media.” It is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals. This year’s competition attracted some 3,700 entries from around the world.

Congratulations to everyone involved in writing, editing, designing, illustrating, and laying out these four outstanding Oregon Sea Grant products!