The National Climate Adaption Science Center (NCASC), under the US Geological Survey, has undertaken a nationwide assessment to better understand how droughts impact ecosystems and the people who depend on those ecosystems. Expanding beyond the traditional means of evaluating drought impacts based solely on detriments to agriculture, livestock and hydrology, this study explores drought which encompasses episodic water deficit impacts to whole ecosystems, along with the resulting human impacts.
During the assessment period, NCASC collected and synthesized data across the nation through regional workshops and produced ecological drought factsheets and an interactive map. Current data gaps were identified and an Ecological Drought Working Group was formed in a collaboration between NCASC and the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) to assist in risk management going forward.
To learn more about this ongoing project,see: https://wim.usgs.gov/geonarrative/ecologicaldrought/
An ambitious effort to quantify climate-driven impacts on both glacially-fed coastal ecosystems and Alaska’s fire-prone boreal forest is under way. A new round of funding through the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) was awarded in October 2018 to collaborating faculty at UAF, UAA and UAS. The 5-year, $20-million-dollar project, entitled Fire and Ice: Navigating Variability in Boreal Wildfire Regimes and Subarctic Coastal Ecosystems, is now prepping for a second summer of field work.
In Kachemak Bay (south-central Alaska) and Lynn Canal (south-eastern Alaska) researchers are evaluating changes in ocean temperature and chemistry in both glacial and non-glacial coastal ecosystems. Stream monitoring, including temperature, sedimentation, and flow measurements began in the spring of 2019 and will continue throughout the granting period. Additionally, researchers are collecting isotope measurements to help identify the sources of water in a given stream (e.g., glacial, snow-melt, groundwater or rainfall). The data will contribute to a greater understanding of the freshwater input into Alaska’s estuarine systems and the effects of continued climate change on these highly-productive ecosystems.
Throughout Alaska’s extensive boreal forest, Fire and Ice researchers are investigating fire activity and associated climate-related impacts. Data will contribute to improved community risk-assessments through modeling to predict lightning probabilities, assess available fuels, and evaluate seasonal climate forecasting in order to better predict fire risks and severity.
Last month the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers announced the signing of a new water rule which finalizes the Trump administrations process for revising the definition for the Waters of the U.S. According to the EPA, the final “Navigable Waters Protection Rule…protects the nation’s navigable waters from pollution and result in economic growth across the country.” The new rule, however, limits the number and types of waters that are protected by the Clean Water Act to just four categories: territorial seas and traditional navigable waters, perennial and intermittent tributaries, certain lakes, ponds, and water impoundments, and wetlands adjacent to these categories.
The new rule, therefore, eliminates existing protections for water coming from rainfall, groundwater, farm, roadside and other ditches, prior converted cropland, farm and stock watering ponds, and waste treatment systems which are hydrologically connected to navigable waters and could therefore spread pollutants on to such waters. The NWPR, leaves intact, state and tribal laws in managing water resources within their own jurisdictions some of which have broader definitions than the federal government for waters that come under such regulatory jurisdiction.
Alaska Native village communities located on the Seward Peninsula region (Villages) rely on healthy watersheds, fish and wildlife for their subsistence needs. At the same time rising temperatures and low snow pack in the region are reeking havoc on the delivery of water when it is most needed. For example, air temperatures in the region, which are rising twice as fast as other places in the country, broke records during the month of July 2019.
These temperature increases are impacting the subsistence livelihoods of the Villages through decreased dissolved oxygen combined with other weather related changes, including low river flows, altered ice flows, and stream bank erosion. In addition, because rivers and streams located within the Western Alaska region are largely fed by snow melt, rising temperatures in the region means rain (instead of snow) is becoming more prominent in the fall and winter. This is resulting in increased seasonal flood events which threaten community infrastructure and scour stream beds used by fish and wildlife.
These sudden changes are impacting fresh water ecosystems during the summer months as well. In 2019 about 22 rivers and streams throughout Alaska reported record water temperatures, as compared to just 7 in 2018. As a result, in June and July 2019, thousands of salmon died as they migrated to spawning grounds in Western Alaska, because the water temperatures exceeded lethal limits for the fish. For example, the Tubulik near Elim and Koyuk had record temperatures as high as 16 degrees centigrad at the Vulcan Creek gage site, 30 miles from the mouth.
These climate related stressors are further exacerbated by non-climate stressors including mining and related development on fish and wildlife populations. Specifically, during 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will be opening over 46 million acres in 1-3 million acres increments, to mining and other development throughout Alaska. As part of this process, the agency plans to open about 3 million acres covered by the Kobuk-Seward Resource Management Plan (Plan) of BLM Alaska land mineral entry and remove community-supported Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The Plan, however, does not address the impacts of increasing water temperatures in watersheds affected by land releases and therefore, the combined impacts of climate change and mining development on subsistence resources.
The Native Village of Elim is applying for funding for it’s Tubutulik River Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Stream Flow Monitoring Plan Project is working to develop a climate change risk assessment for the Tubutulik River Watershed (Watershed) that will include: 1) Application of drought and temperature forecasting for the Seward Penninsula to predict instream flows and temperature; 2) Protocols for collection of instream flow, temperature and dissolved oxygen data during the summer season when temperatures are at their highest; 3) Identify lands within the Watershed that include critical fish habitat and potential locateable minerals that have been opened for mining under the Kobuk-Seward Peninsula Resource Management Plan (RMP); 4) Identify a process for applying the modeling and data collected to assist policy makers and land managers to mitigate land uses that potentially exacerbate climate related impacts in the Watershed and 5) Apply for instream flow water rights under Alaska state law on stream reaches in sensitive watersheds that have been open to mining activity.
Once the Assessment is completed, it will serve as an ecosystem-wide vulnerability assessment for natural resource(s) that can be used by multiple tribes as a template for conducting their own modeling, data collection and outreach to federal and state agency land managers. There are multiple sensitive salmon streams and rivers within the RMP planning area that other tribes rely on for subsistence practices that will be impacted by the opening of lands to mining under the RMP. The Assessment will, therefore, specifically benefit the other Village communities located on the Seward Peninsula by assisting in the prediction of instream flows and temperature impacts to salmon and other fisheries, and measures that will result in quantifiable, locally based watershed protection from the potential impacts of climate change and land development.
A recent study conducted by scientists from the University of Washington, University of Utah, and University of Alaska Anchorage, concludes that a population of seals found in Lake Iliamna, Alaska’s largest lake, form a distinct, freshwater population. An analysis of the seals’ teeth indicates that the approximately 400 animals depend exclusively on freshwater fish found in the lake, rather than saltwater fish species consumed by other, marine-based, harbor seals. This finding brings the number of known freshwater seal populations around the globe to five.
This distinction has led the Center for Biological Diversity to petition the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to protect the Iliamna population under the Endangered Species Act. Threats to the population, according to the petition, include the proposed Pebble Mine, which would create the largest open-pit copper, gold and molybdenum mine in the state, along with associated infrastructure, including a ferry system across Lake Iliamna, and massive freshwater withdrawals. The proposed mine is located in southwestern Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.
Permafrost, which consists of frozen soil, acts like a pond liner, retaining snowmelt and rainfall at the surface. As permafrost thaws, pathways for drainage are created and ponds and lakes diminish in size or drain away all together. In a study by the National Park Service, aerial photos of Alaska’s arctic park lands between 1984 and 2018 indicate significant drainage following years with unusually warm temperatures. Moreover, the rate of lake loss appears to be accelerating. The loss of arctic lakes is impacting area wildlife, including millions of nesting waterfowl that depend on these habitats. The yellow-billed loon is of particular concern, as half of the world’s population of just 10,000 birds spends the summer in the Alaskan arctic, foraging for fish in deeper waters and nesting at the water’s edge.
For more information see: https://www.nps.gov/articles/lostarcticlakes.htm
