RiverMap is designed to map and summarize the various efforts in the Mississippi River Basin on issues related to nutrient management and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.

With a 2,300-mile river whose watershed covers more than half of the United States, it is an enormous challenge to gauge measurable impacts of our collective efforts to turn the tide against hypoxia. This is largely a problem of too little coordinated information. It is also a question of whether there are adequate resources to support this work.

RiverMap has grown out of the clear need for more public information about who is doing what where to address hypoxia in the Mississippi River Basin. Having this information in a publicly accessible, central location will:

• Help promote all of the individual efforts to address hypoxia throughout the Basin
• Educate and inform the public and potential partners about hypoxia and efforts to address it
• Create deeper and new partnerships to improve water quality and reduce the size of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf
• Help shape more effective public policy
• Spark conversations and collaborations that will help focus attention and resources on areas that hold the greatest promise for the greatest impact

The White House Council on Environment and Natural Resources has devoted millions of dollars to studying both the causes of and solutions to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Their key recommendations for solutions are simple and powerful: we must change the way we farm throughout the Mississippi River Basin.

This kind of change will require three interdependent levels of development-local, regional and national-with work at one level shaping work at all levels. It will require years of effort; integrating various disciplines of science with one another and with non-scientist stakeholders; creating practical economic incentives; changing federal policy; and working in targeted areas.

This kind of change is not without precedent. The Basin is already home to a number of positive individual actions. If those actions can be encouraged at a larger scale, we can make progress toward reducing the flow of nutrients into the river and mitigating hypoxia in the Gulf.

How we grow our food, fuel and fiber has an enormous impact on the Mississippi River's ecological health and on the quality of life in the Basin. The trend of dramatic growth of the Gulf hypoxic zone shows that current conservation efforts are not adequate.

A key challenge to solving this problem on a long-term basis is the articulation of a common vision and means for connecting economic sectors and stakeholders across the Basin who have an interest in a healthy Mississippi River and Gulf; thriving, sustainable agriculture systems; and healthy, viable communities across rural America.

RiverMap has been developed to do just that.

This project has its origin in a partnership between:

• Mississippi River Basin Alliance
• Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
• Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
• Green Lands, Blue Waters
• Sustainability Institute

It is supported through funds from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Bush Foundation, and McKnight Foundation.

RiverMap is currently collecting as much data as possible from organizations and individuals involved in hypoxia-related activities. We are interested in everything you are doing to reduce nutrients, improve water quality, and lessen hypoxia. And by "you" we mean everyone from farmers, researchers, lawyers, policy analysts, educators, and government agency staff, to scientists.

The information you provide about your work will be incorporated into the publicly accessible, online database and mapping system at RiverMap.org. We hope over time that we can count you among the growing number of partners who "own" this database of information and become a network of stakeholders.