The Casco Bay Estuary Partnership helps track and report on changing conditions within the Bay and its watershed. Every five years, in its State of the Bay report, the Partnership portrays how Casco Bay is faring—what trends are evident, what progress is visible, and what new challenges are emerging. By tracking indicators at regular intervals over decades, the Partnership helps identify the collective work needed to sustain the region.
State of the Bay 2015, summarized here and detailed online at www.cascobayestuary.org/state-of-the-bay-2015, reveals a complex array of factors shaping the ecology and economy of the Casco Bay region. There’s a mix of encouraging news, interspersed with unsettling trends. The warming climate represents a vast and unpredictable driver of regional change—with hotter ocean and air temperatures, more frequent and extreme precipitation, and rising seas (already evident in flooding at extreme high tides).
Indicators used in the past (and included in the 2015 report) do not fully account for the dynamic interplay of forces currently at work on Casco Bay. Future reports will include new indicators to help gauge the pace and impacts of far reaching change.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cbep-state-of-the-bay/1000/thumbnail.jp
