Increasing multi-hazard climate risk and financial and health impacts on northern homeowners.

Currently, more than half of the world's human population lives in urban areas, which are increasingly affected by climate hazards. Little is known about how multi-hazard environments affect people, especially those living in urban areas in northern latitudes. This study surveyed homeowners in Anchorage and Fairbanks, USA, Alaska's largest urban centers, to measure individual risk perceptions, mitigation response, and damages related to wildfire, surface ice hazards, and permafrost thaw. Up to one third of residents reported being affected by all three hazards, with surface ice hazards being the most widely distributed, related to an estimated $25 million in annual damages. Behavioral risk response, policy recommendations for rapidly changing urban environments, and the challenges to local governments in mitigation efforts are discussed.

A framework for assessing food-energy-water security: A FEW case studies from rural Alaska.

Food, energy, and water (FEW) are basic needs for well-being and quality of life. Assessing FEW security allows residents, communities, and policy makers to make informed decisions about how to sustain and improve well-being. We have developed a FEW security assessment framework that examines four components of security: availability, access, quality, and preference. With the help of local community members, we interviewed 114 households in three rural Alaska communities to assess FEW security, drivers and outcomes of FEW security, and potential interactions among FEW components and with renewable energy (RE) developments. While FEW security was high overall, preference and quality, especially for food, was lower. Food harvested from the local environment (i.e. subsistence) was necessary to include in security assessments given that 24% of participants reported insecurity when asked about contemporary sources (i.e. purchased) versus 5% reporting insecurity for subsistence food sources (i.e., harvested). The major influences on FEW security tended to originate from outside the community, including factors such as transportation, income, fuel prices, and weather. One internal factor, health, was both a driver and an outcome of FEW security. Satisfaction with RE varied (42%-68%) with dissatisfaction due to unreliability, uncertainty of the economic benefit, desire for other types of RE, or wanting more RE (n = 6). Communication about RE projects was key to managing expectations, promoting knowledge, and identifying benefits for residents. Participants did not identify linkages between RE and FEW security. Our assessment tool can be used by communities and policy makers to contextualize FEW security into more insightful and specific components, allowing for identification of attainable actions to improve FEW security and thus individual and community well-being.

Hitchhikers on floats to Arctic freshwater: Private aviation and recreation loss from aquatic invasion.

This study of aviation-related recreation loss shows that a survey primarily aimed at collecting information on invasive species' pathways can also be used to estimate changes in pathway-related ecosystem services. We present a case study for Elodea spp. (elodea), Alaska's first known aquatic invasive plant, by combining respondents' stated pre-invasion actual flights with stated post-invasion contingent behavior, plane operating costs, and site quality data. We asked pilots about the extent of continued flights should destinations become invaded and inhibit flight safety. We estimate a recreation demand model where the lost trip value to the average floatplane pilot whose destination is an elodea-invaded lake is US$185 (95 % CI $157, $211). Estimates of ecosystem damages incurred by private actors responsible for transmitting invaders can nudge actors to change behavior and inform adaptive ecosystem management. The policy and modeling implications of quantifying such damages and integration into more complex models are discussed.

MicroFEWs: A Food-Energy-Water Systems Approach to Renewable Energy Decisions in Islanded Microgrid Communities in Rural Alaska.

In recent years, there has been increased recognition of the importance of a nexus approach to optimize food, energy, and water (FEW) security at regional and global scales. Remote communities in the Arctic and Subarctic regions in Alaska provide unique examples of closed and isolated systems, wherein the FEW nexus not only needs to be examined to lend resilience to these vulnerable communities but that could also serve as small-scale test beds for a wider and systematic understanding of the FEW nexus. In this short communication, looking at the FEW nexus in Cordova, Alaska, through an energy lens, we introduce an approach (referred to as the "MicroFEWs approach") that may assist remote communities in Alaska in making informed decisions regarding the use of renewable energy to increase FEW security. Our example uses the MicroFEWs approach to assess the impacts of increased renewable energy generation on FEW security in the community, more specifically to food security through potential changes to the community's fish processing industry. This approach can serve as a basis for investigating the FEW nexus in varying contexts and locales.

Climate-driven effects of fire on winter habitat for caribou in the Alaskan-Yukon Arctic.

Climatic warming has direct implications for fire-dominated disturbance patterns in northern ecosystems. A transforming wildfire regime is altering plant composition and successional patterns, thus affecting the distribution and potentially the abundance of large herbivores. Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) are an important subsistence resource for communities throughout the north and a species that depends on terrestrial lichen in late-successional forests and tundra systems. Projected increases in area burned and reductions in stand ages may reduce lichen availability within caribou winter ranges. Sufficient reductions in lichen abundance could alter the capacity of these areas to support caribou populations. To assess the potential role of a changing fire regime on winter habitat for caribou, we used a simulation modeling platform, two global circulation models (GCMs), and a moderate emissions scenario to project annual fire characteristics and the resulting abundance of lichen-producing vegetation types (i.e., spruce forests and tundra >60 years old) across a modeling domain that encompassed the winter ranges of the Central Arctic and Porcupine caribou herds in the Alaskan-Yukon Arctic. Fires were less numerous and smaller in tundra compared to spruce habitats throughout the 90-year projection for both GCMs. Given the more likely climate trajectory, we projected that the Porcupine caribou herd, which winters primarily in the boreal forest, could be expected to experience a greater reduction in lichen-producing winter habitats (-21%) than the Central Arctic herd that wintered primarily in the arctic tundra (-11%). Our results suggest that caribou herds wintering in boreal forest will undergo fire-driven reductions in lichen-producing habitats that will, at a minimum, alter their distribution. Range shifts of caribou resulting from fire-driven changes to winter habitat may diminish access to caribou for rural communities that reside in fire-prone areas.

Population structure and genetic diversity of moose in Alaska.

Moose (Alces alces) are highly mobile mammals that occur across arboreal regions of North America, Europe, and Asia. Alaskan moose (Alces alces gigas) range across much of Alaska and are primary herbivore consumers, exerting a prominent influence on ecosystem structure and functioning. Increased knowledge gained from population genetics provides insights into their population dynamics, history, and dispersal of these unique large herbivores and can aid in conservation efforts. We examined the genetic diversity and population structure of moose (n = 141) with 8 polymorphic microsatellites from 6 regions spanning much of Alaska. Expected heterozygosity was moderate (H(E) = 0.483-0.612), and private alleles ranged from 0 to 6. Both F(ST) and R(ST) indicated significant population structure (P < 0.001) with F(ST) < 0.109 and R(ST) < 0.125. Results of analyses from STRUCTURE indicated 2 prominent population groups, a mix of moose from the Yakutat and Tetlin regions versus all other moose, with slight substructure observed among the second population. Estimates of dispersal differed between analytical approaches, indicating a high level of historical or current gene flow. Mantel tests indicated that isolation-by-distance partially explained observed structure among moose populations (R(2) = 0.45, P < 0.01). Finally, there was no evidence of bottlenecks either at the population level or overall. We conclude that weak population structure occurs among moose in Alaska with population expansion from interior Alaska westward toward the coast.