Resources

The western coastline of Alaska is highly susceptible to coastal storms, which can cause coastal erosion, flooding, and have other pernicious effects to the environment and commercial efforts. The reduction in ice coverage due to climate change could potentially increase the frequency and degree of coastal flooding and erosion.

As Alaskans continue to feel the impacts of a changing climate, the need for resource managers to understand how these changes will alter aquatic systems and fisheries resources grows. Water temperature data collection has increased in recent years to begin to fill our gaps in knowledge about current thermal profiles. Many entities are collecting temperature data for a variety of purposes to meet project or agency specific goals.

Nearshore bathymetry is a vital link that joins offshore water depths to coastal topography. Seamless water depth information is a critical input parameter for reliable storm surge models, enables the calculation of sediment budgets and is necessary baseline data for a range of coastal management decisions. Funding from the Western Alaska LCC resulted in the purchase of field equipment capable of shallow water measurements in rural settings, allowing collection of nearshore bathymetry around western Alaska communities.

As Alaskans continue to feel the impacts of a changing climate, the need for resource managers to understand how these changes will alter aquatic systems and fisheries resources grows. Water temperature data collection has increased in recent years to begin to fill our gaps in knowledge about current thermal profiles; however, with Alaska’s vast landscapes and ubiquitous freshwater habitats, the need for water temperature data is ongoing. Many entities are collecting temperature data for a variety of purposes to meet project or agency specific goals.

To assess the vulnerability of a region to invasive plants, documentation of the presence or absence of invasive plants is necessary. This project expands on work initiated by the EPA to identify invasive plants in rural communities in the Bristol Bay region. Eighteen additional Bristol Bay communities were inventoried for invasive plants in 2012-2014. This work provides a baseline for understanding the potential impact from these plants and the opportunity to treat the existing populations before they invade new areas.

This project used previously collected ShoreZone imagery to map nearly 1,600 km of coastline between Wales and Kotzebue. With additional mapping supported by the Arctic LCC and National Park Service, this effort completed the Kotzebue Sound shoreline, which now has been included in the state-wide ShoreZone dataset. The complete ShoreZone dataset for the region was used to conduct a coastal hazards analysis and create maps that identify areas undergoing rapid coastal erosion and areas that are sensitive to inundation by storm surge and sea level rise.​

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska is a globally important region for numerous
avian species including millions of migrating and nesting waterbirds. Climate change effects
such as sea level rise and increased storm frequency and intensity have the potential to impact
waterbird populations and breeding habitat. In order to determine the potential impacts of these
climate-mediated changes, we investigated both short-term and long-term impacts of storm
surges to geese and eider species that commonly breed on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. To

This project established a permafrost monitoring network in this region, providing a baseline of permafrost thermal regimes for assessing future change at a total of 26 automated monitoring stations. Stations have collected year-round temperature data from the active layer and the permafrost starting from the summer of 2011. The strong correspondence between spatial variability in permafrost thermal regime and an existing ecotype map allowed for the development of a map of 'permafrost thermal classes' for the broader study region.

Western Alaska is a remote region with many small, isolated communities situated in low-lying coastal environments that are sensitive to variations in local relative sea level (RSL). Quantification of RSL variation requires measured vertical velocities for both tectonic motion (onshore component) and the ocean surface (offshore component). During the summers of 2013 and 2014, campaign GPS surveys of geodetic benchmarks were undertaken to produce statistically significant velocity measurements of the tectonic component of sea level change for the region.

This project resulted in an extensive mapping of coastal change along the entire coastline of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC). The work provides important baseline information on the distribution and magnitude of landscape changes over the past 41 years.

The caribou populations of southwest Alaska have declined precipitously over the past decade or more, and the total population of this expansive region currently is 80% below the populations of the late 90’s to early 2000’s.

The Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta of Alaska,USAis a globally important region for numerous avian
species including millions of migrating and nesting waterbirds.However, data on the current spatial distribution
of critical nesting areas and the importance of environmental variables in the selection of nest locations are
generally lacking for waterbirds in this region.We modeled nest densities for 6 species of geese and eiders that
commonly breed on the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, including cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii minima),

A high spatial resolution storm surge model was developed for the YK Delta area to assess biological impacts of storm surges under current and future climates. Storm surges are expected to be more frequent and more severe in the YK Delta area due to climate change and sea level rise. The biological impacts in the YK Delta due to the changed storm surges could be extreme.

Global environmental change has influenced lake surface temperatures, a key driver of ecosystem structure
and function. Recent studies have suggested significant warming of water temperatures in individual lakes
across many different regions around the world. However, the spatial and temporal coherence associated
with the magnitude of these trends remains unclear. Thus, a global data set of water temperature is
required to understand and synthesize global, long-term trends in surface water temperatures of inland

This project produced an existing vegetation type map at 30m resolution for the northern half of the Western Alaska LCC region, and Kodiak Archipelago. The lack of a consistently mapped vegetation data layer for Alaska has been identified as a prima​​ry road block for many conservation and management entities across the state. This project addresses a number of the LCC conservation goals by addressing a baseline science and provides a foundation for current and future projects within the region.

The western coastline of Alaska is highly susceptible to coastal storms, which can cause coastal erosion, flooding, and have other pernicious effects to the environment and commercial efforts. The reduction in ice coverage due to climate change could potentially increase the frequency and degree of coastal flooding and erosion.

Hydrologic processes greatly influence Alaska’s physical and biological resources and the human communities that depend upon them. These processes will also be greatly impacted by expected changes in climate, including warming temperatures and changing seasonal precipitation patterns and amounts. However, current understanding of those impacts is limited. Improving that understanding is a first step toward assessing how the likely changes in hydrology will impact other physical and biological processes.

This project used previously collected ShoreZone imagery to map nearly 1,600 km of coastline between Wales and Kotzebue. With additional mapping supported by the Arctic LCC and National Park Service, this effort completed the Kotzebue Sound shoreline, which now has been included in the state-wide ShoreZone dataset. The complete ShoreZone dataset for the region was used to conduct a coastal hazards analysis and create maps that identify areas undergoing rapid coastal erosion and areas that are sensitive to inundation by storm surge and sea level rise.​

This project used existing ShoreZone coastal imagery to map 719 km of shoreline in Bristol Bay, from Cape Constantine to Cape Newenham. This section of coastline is an extremely important herring spawning area and an important component of the Bristol Bay fisheries. Intertidal and nearshore vegetation, on which herring spawn, was catalogued as part of the mapping and, along with shore types, coastal substrate, and coastal biota, added to the state-wide ShoreZone dataset.​

The compilation of an accurate and contemporary digital shoreline for Alaska is an important step in understanding coastal processes and measuring changes in coastal storm characteristics. Consistent with efforts by the United States National Park Service (NPS) at Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (BELA) and Cape Krusenstern National Monument, high quality, defensible digital shoreline datasets are under development for select coastal parks in the State of Alaska.

To assess the vulnerability of a region to invasive plants, documentation of the presence or absence of invasive plants is necessary. This project identified invasive plants in rural communities in the Bristol Bay region. Villages were inventoried for invasive plant species; providing essential baseline to understand the potential impact from these plants and the opportunity to treat the existing populations before they invade new areas.

This project resulted in an extensive mapping of coastal change along the entire coastline of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC). The work provides important baseline information on the distribution and magnitude of landscape changes over the past 41 years.

Understanding the causes of relative sea level rise requires knowledge of changes to both land (uplift and subsidence) and sea level. However, measurements of coastal uplift or subsidence are almost completely lacking in western Alaska. This project provided precise measurements of prioritized benchmarks across the Western Alaska geography, improving the network of published tidal benchmark elevations, allowing for tidal datum conversion in more places, and providing a necessary component for improved inundation studies in coastal communities and low-lying areas.

Nearshore bathymetry is a vital link that joins offshore water depths to coastal topography. Seamless water depth information is a critical input parameter for reliable storm surge models, enables the calculation of sediment budgets and is necessary baseline data for a range of coastal management decisions. Funding from the Western Alaska LCC resulted in the purchase of field equipment capable of shallow water measurements in rural settings, allowing collection of nearshore bathymetry around western Alaska communities.