SEAKFHP’s COASTAL FISH HABIAT CONSERVATION STRATEGY
Southeast Alaska’s Coastal Landscape Southeast Alaska, a unique landscape encompassing more than 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of shoreline, collectively supports a variety of fishery habitats including over 12,000 individual estuaries that serve as important nursery areas for a variety of fish and invertebrate species (Albert and Schoen 2007; Ecological Atlas of Southeast Alaska 2016). In addition to estuaries, Southeast Alaska’s coastal landscape is characterized by extensive nearshore areas connecting over 5,000 islands spread across the Alexander Archipelago including intertidal and beach habitat and other wetland features. Within these rich ecosystems aquatic resources abound and include diverse and abundant populations of commercially and culturally important fish and shellfish species, such as Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.), herring (Clupea pallasii), blackcod (Anoplopoma fimbria), Pacific cod (Gadus microcephalus), halibut (Hyppoglossus stenolepis), king crab (Paralithodes sp.), dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), geoducks (Panopea generosa) and many others. This region is also home to 74,000 people dispersed across 34 communities, all of which occur along the shoreline and tidelands. Fishery and other aquatic resources critical to these communities are robust and flourishing yet potentially at risk as human activities increase due to urbanization and through dispersed activities, such as marine related ship traffic and residual impacts from historical land-use practices (Baker et al. 2011; TNC Coastal-GIS Human Activities Database 2011). In addition, they face additional challenges linked to emerging changes in climate and ocean conditions. These changes not only threaten important fish populations in the region, but they also alter the ways in which these resources need to be considered to ensure resilient ecosystems foster healthy communities and indigenous cultures in the future.
To help support decisions and actions that protect and maintain important coastal fish habitat access to existing data and information is vital. SEAKFHP partners have worked to identify and archive the metadata for those resources, these are noted below. It is envisioned this metadata archive will provide the foundational pieces needed to assist local Southeast Alaska communities to assess their coastal fish habitat and create forms of guidance on how to minimize future impacts and develop restoration plans as needed.
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Southeast Alaska Coastal Fish Habitat Regional Data Repositories and Resource Providers:
University of Alaska GIS Library (Coastal Resource Management Module) http://seakgis.alaska.edu/projects/coastal-resource-module.html
ShoreZone- Alaska Coastal Inventory and Mapping Project http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/shorezone/default.htm
Southeast Alaska Inventory and Monitoring Network – National Park Service http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/sean/
Southeast Alaska Long-term Monitoring Network – SALMoN http://www.seakecology.org/
Alaska Stream Team – Biological Monitoring Program Alaska http://astdatabase.uaa.alaska.edu/
Department of Fish and Game’s Alaska fish passage inventory and assessment database http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=fishpassage.database
Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Anadromous Waters Catalog http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/sf/SARR/AWC/
Coastal Cutthroat Trout Range-wide Assessment http://www.coastalcutthroattrout.org/
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation’s – Alaska’s Clean Water Actions (Impaired water bodies/waters to watch) http://dec.alaska.gov/water/acwa/acwa_index.htm
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation – Water Quality Reports Inventory http://dec.alaska.gov/water/wqsar/reports.html
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation – Water Quality Mapper http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=f7e8ca8c14fe4520b9e2e1498e3cdee3&extent=-180,53.8136,-116.9167,71.3641;#!
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation – AKMAP Coastal Survey of Southeast Alaska – 2004 http://dec.alaska.gov/water/wqsar/monitoring/2004Southeast.htm
2004 Southeast Alaska Coastal Survey Environmental Status
Development of a Microinvertebrate Biological Assessment Index for Alexander Archipelago Streams (2005) http://dec.alaska.gov/water/wqsar/pdfs/Reports/Southeast-Coastal-Survey-2004-ADEC.pdf
NOAA’s Essential Fish Habitat Mapper http://www.habitat.noaa.gov/protection/efh/habitatmapper.html
NOAA’s Nearshore Fish Atlas of Alaska https://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/habitat/fishatlas/
Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center http://acrc.alaska.edu/
NOAA’s Marine Debris Program
Tsunami Debris and other Marine Debris in Alaska http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/our-work
Alaska Ocean Observing System (Monitoring buoys, Ocean Acidification) https://portal.aoos.org/
Ocean Acidification Data (Southeast Alaska, SEATOR, Sitka Tribe) http://www.seator.org/ocean-acidification
Alaska Ocean Acidification Monitoring Network https://www.aoos.org/alaska-ocean-acidification-network/
Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research (and Monitoring) http://www.seator.org/
Regional Habitat Assessment and Prioritization Strategies, Resources and Publications for and relevant to Southeast Alaska:
From Salmon to Seabirds: A new Ecological Atlas for Southeast Alaska – 2016 (Audubon/The Nature Conservancy) http://ak.audubon.org/conservation/tongass-national-forest
Coastal Forests and Mountains Ecoregion Assessment for Southeast Alaska – The Nature Conservancy/Audubon Society http://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationByGeography/NorthAmerica/UnitedStates/alaska/seak/era/cfm/Pages/CA-AKCFM.aspx
Watershed Restoration Priorities – A Strategic Plan for the Sitka Community Use Area – Sitka Conservation Society https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/restoration_priorities_SCUA_app.pdf
Southeast Alaska’s Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems Assessment – Katharine Miller, NMFS Alaska Fisheries Science Center https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Coastal-Assessment_NMFS-presentation-3-2013.pdf
An Estuarine Habitat Classification for a Complex Fjordal Island Archipelago – Schoch et al. 2013 Estuaries and Coasts https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Schoch_etal_2013_Estuaries_and_Coasts.pdf
A Conservation Action Plan for Estuarine Ecosystems of Southeastern Alaska – The Nature Conservancy, 2011 https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/estuaries_cap_final_03_30_11.pdf
Mapping Human Activities and Designing an Index of Cumulative Use within Estuarine and Nearshore Marine Ecosystems in Southeast Alaska – The Nature Conservancy, 2011 https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Coastal-GIS_Human_Activites_Final_Report.pdf
Atlas of Nearshore Fishes of Alaska: A Synthesis of Marine Surveys from 1998 to 2011 – Johnson et al. 2011 NOAA Technical Report
ShoreZone Summary for Southeast Alaska http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/techmemos/nmfs-afsc-239.htm
A Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for Aquatic Resources in the Tongass National Forest (EcoAdapt, November 2014) http://ecoadapt.org/data/documents/EcoAdapt_Tongass_VulnerabilityAssessmentReport_FINAL_22Nov214_smallres.pdf
Icefield-to-Ocean Linkages across the Northern Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest Ecosystem (BioScience, March 2015) http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/03/12/biosci.biv027.full.pdf
Protecting Habitat for Coastal Cutthroat Trout through Reservations of Water in Southeast Alaska (Jason Hass, June 2016 WNTI Special Report) https://www.seakfhp.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SEAK-Water-Reservations-for-CCT-habitat-final-report-06282016.pdf
National Fish Habitat Assessment for 2010
National Fish Habitat Assessment for 2015
Protected Marine Habitats in Southeast Alaska:
Conservation properties in Southeast Alaska – Estuaries (Southeast Alaska Land Trust) https://www.southeastalaskalandtrust.org/wp-content/uploads45yI789N/2014/09/Estuaries-140924-print.pdf
Dude Creek Critical Habitat Area, Gustavus, Alaska http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=dudecreek.main
Habitat Assessment Resources and Publications for Southeast Alaska:
ShoreZone Coastal Habitat Mapping Protocol for the Gulf of Alaska, August 2008 http://alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/shorezone/goa_protocol.pdf
NOAA’s Essential Fish Habitat Programmatic Consultation for Restoration Center Program Activities in Alaska, August 2012 http://www.alaskafisheries.noaa.gov/habitat/restoration/efh_programmatic_restoration2012.pdf
Biotic Assessment Resources:
Shellfish Testing Data (SEATOR, Sitka Tribe) http://www.seator.org/Data
Other Resources
Seaweeds of Alaska
Seagrass Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography (NOAA)
Southern Southeast Alaska Sea Otter Project – Alaska Sea Grant
Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States (NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 083. Sweet et al 2017. Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States. 75 pp.)