From Blue Water to Green Land: Facilitating Adaptation to Sea Level Rise and Changing Storm Surge Patterns - 1

Coastal regions of North America are already experiencing the effects of climate change and the consequences of new storm patterns and sea level rise. These climate change effects are even more pronounced in western Alaska where the loss of sea ice in early winter and spring are exposing the coast to powerful winter storms that are visibly altering the landscape, putting coastal communities at risk, and are likely impacting important coastal wildlife habitat in ways we don't yet understand. Understanding these changes and how they may progress with increasingly warmer winters is an important step in developing adaptation strategies. The Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative has funded a suite of projects on changes in coastal storms and their impacts. The momentum gained from the project seed money has prompted additional partner activity which will lead to better tools for communities to respond to dangerous storms and for resource managers to identify vulnerable habitats, monitoring designs and testable hypotheses about species response to habitat change from increasing storm surge effects.