Score Your Shore:
a citizen shoreline description survey
Score Your Shore is a tool to assess habitat conditions of developed lake lots. The protocol is designed for use by lakeshore property owners to self-assess habitat and stewardship on their land and adjacent aquatic areas. This tool may also be used by organizations, such as lake associations, to assess multiple sites on a lake. Score Your Shore provides an objective and systematic method to assess the type, quantity and quality of the existing shoreland habitat.
The Score Your Shore tool will enable you to:
- Assess the amount of habitat at developed lake sites
- Generate awareness of what makes a high quality functioning shoreline buffer
- Provide a system to recognize landowners with functioning shoreline buffers.
The following self-guided materials are available to view and download, free of charge. Groups may adapt these basic materials to meet their specific assessment needs.
- Score Your Shore Manual:
A 48 page manual that describes the importance of shoreline buffers and step by step instructions on how to assess your shoreline. The manual includes illustrations and examples of how to score a lake lot.
- Score Your Shore Quick Guide:
A four page field reference to assist citizens in scoring process.
- Score Your Shore Training Powerpoint:
An 18 slide presentation for lake groups interested in training volunteers in how to use Score Your Shore.