Coastal Resilience in Alaska

This transcript of a virtual briefing hosted by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) in April 2020 examines the threats to coastal resilience in Alaska. Panelists discuss the compounding effects of permafrost thaw, sea ice loss, and extreme precipitation on infrastructure and food security, while highlighting the critical need to integrate indigenous knowledge with western science and overcome systemic barriers to funding and coordination.

• Alaska is warming faster than the rest of the United States, with the highest rates of warming occurring in the southern coasts and on the north slope. This warming is not uniform across the state's diverse topography, meaning adaptation solutions cannot be 'one-size-fits-all'.
• Coastal resilience is threatened by a combination of thawing permafrost and decreasing sea ice seasons. Thawing permafrost reduces shoreline stability, while the loss of shore-fast ice leaves coasts more exposed to autumn and early winter storms, accelerating erosion and flooding even if storm frequency remains constant.
• Extreme precipitation events are projected to increase substantially in the 21st century, contributing to flooding in river slough communities and steep watersheds. Under high emissions scenarios, events that were historically one-in-20-year occurrences could become as frequent as one-in-three in parts of Western Alaska and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
• The financial cost of community relocation is extremely high, ranging from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars per community. For example, the move of Newtok to Mertarvik is estimated to be in this range. Without adaptation, cumulative infrastructure impacts between 2015 and 2099 are estimated at $4.3 billion (low emissions) to $5.5 billion (high emissions) in 2015 dollars.
• There is a significant lack of basic elevation and mapping data for many Alaskan coastal communities, which hinders the ability to project flood risks. While IFSAR radar data was completed for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in 2019, much of the state still lacks adequate data, and the National Wetlands Inventory only covers about 40 percent of Alaska.
• Indigenous knowledge is vital for resilience but is often undervalued or ignored by government agencies during adaptation planning. There is a call for a 'co-production' of knowledge where western science and traditional observations—which often provide deeper historical records of weather and ocean dynamics—are used simultaneously.
• Several systemic barriers impede coastal resilience efforts, including convoluted federal financial assistance processes, a lack of a central coordinating authority for adaptation in Alaska, and poor telecommunications infrastructure in tribal communities that limits access to telemedicine and digital planning tools.
• Regional partnerships, such as the Aleutian Bering Sea Initiative and the Northwest Boreal Partnership, provide non-regulatory forums for diverse stakeholders to address large-scale issues. These groups have shifted focus from pure science toward adaptation and resilience, including projects like creating voluntary vessel avoidance areas to protect Steller sea lions.
• The Indigenous Sentinels Network, launched in 2002 by the community of St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands, represents a unique model of community-based observation. Unlike many citizen science programs, the data questions are defined by the community, the community owns the data, and the observers are paid for their work.

APA

Environmental and Energy Study Institute (2020). Coastal Resilience in Alaska. https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_042120.pdf

Chicago

Environmental and Energy Study Institute. Coastal Resilience in Alaska. 2020. https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_042120.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Environmental and Energy Study Institute |title=Coastal Resilience in Alaska |date=April 2020 |url=https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_042120.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{environmentalandenergystudyinstitute2020coastal, author = {{Environmental and Energy Study Institute}}, title = {{Coastal Resilience in Alaska}}, institution = {Environmental and Energy Study Institute}, year = {2020}, month = apr, url = {https://www.eesi.org/files/transcript_042120.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }