Monitor and Evaluate
Community-based monitoring is critical to understanding how much and how quickly climate change is affecting the local environment.
Researchers and citizen scientists can work together to improve understanding of complex climate and ecosystem dynamics by:
- collaborating on coastal erosion or water temperature monitoring projects
- collecting and sharing Indigenous knowledge, local community observations, and new research
- integrating existing networks of information into a hub
Resources for monitoring
| Title | Summary |
|---|---|
| Alaska Arctic Observatory & Knowledge Hub | Shares information from community-based observations on sea ice change, and provides tools and observational data relevant to changes in the arctic seasonal cycle. |
| Alaska Climate Resilience | Alaskans have been working in diverse arenas to reach common goals of ensuring economic opportunity, health, and safety for everyone in Alaska—now, and in the years to come—as our environment continues to change. Learn how the State of Alaska is working to increase resilience. |
| Alaska Coastal Hazards Program | The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys helps build local capacity to monitor flooding and erosion in Alaska communities. This site has the most recent updates for monitoring activities in low bandwidth community-specific pages. Two particular websites that may be helpful for communities interested in monitoring activities include a recent report and community-specific maps of shoreline change and the Alaska Water Level Watch program. The DGGS Shoreline Change at Alaska Coastal Communities includes maps of historical erosion and accretion rates for several riverine and coastal communities in Alaska. The report and community-specific maps are available here. The Alaska Water Level Watch is a collaborative group working to improve the quality, coverage, and accessibility to water level observations in Alaska’s coastal zone. For information about water level monitoring in coastal communities in Alaska see the website here. Photo Courtesy of Jacquelyn Overbeck … |
| Alaska Forestry Sciences Laboratory | Works with partners to collect forest survey data from remote sensing systems, including satellites and high-altitude aerial photography. |
| Alaska Online Aquatic Temperature Site | A comprehensive statewide inventory of current and historic continuous monitoring locations for stream and lake temperature. |
| Alaska Water Level Watch | The Alaska Water Level Watch (AWLW) is a collaborative group working to improve the quality, coverage, and accessibility to water level observations in Alaska’s coastal zone. Water level data has many applications that contribute to safe navigation, storm modeling and mapping, tsunami warnings, watches, and advisories, incident response, search and rescue operations, tidal datums, sea-level trends, storm trends, and much more. Photo Courtesy of Jacquelyn … |
| Community Based Methods for Monitoring Coastal Erosion | Guide for designing and installing erosion monitoring systems, with tips for selecting monitoring sites, instructions for site installation and data collection, and lists of necessary materials. |
| Indigenous Sentinels Network | The goal of the BeringWatch Indigenous Sentinel Network (ISN) is to provide remote, indigenous communities with tools, training, networking and convening, coordination, and capacity for ecological, environmental, and climate monitoring. |
| Local Environmental Observer (LEO) Network | Provides access to first-hand accounts of climate and environmental change, made by expert observers based on local and traditional knowledge in the area. |
| Rural Alaska Monitoring Program | RAMP is a tribally-designed, village-based, resident-operated program to monitor existing and emerging climate-mediated threats to village food and water security, and to provide data for adaptation strategies. |
| Sea Ice for Walrus Outlook | A resource for sea ice and conditions relevant to walrus. |
| Sea Level Rise Viewer | Visualize community-level impacts from coastal flooding or sea level rise (up to 10 feet above average high tides). |
| Sitka Landslide Risk Dashboard | In response to landslides that took place in 2015, the Sitka Sound Science Center has created a tool for forecasting landslides in the Sitka region of Baranof Island. The landslide warning system launched in the format of a “Landslide Dashboard” web page in the Spring of 2022. |
| Southeast Alaska Salmon Simulator | Climate Change is causing changes in stream hydrology that impact salmon populations. Researchers at UAF, SAWC, and USFS have produced a Southeast Alaska Salmon Simulator to model salmon abundance under changing conditions. The simulator provides a tool for stakeholders to input streamflow and temperature data to project the number of returning adult salmon for particular streams. This tool helps to achieve more localized, downscaled projections of salmon returns for communities. |