Background Articles

The Bureau of Land Management, in partnership with the Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation District and Trout Unlimited, are restoring mining-impacted streams along the upper Yukon River watershed. Projects will improve water quality and fish habitat along Nome and Wade Creeks.

Now, for the first time, researchers have concrete evidence that northern pike could use the ocean to move between freshwater Alaska habitats.

A group of Indigenous communities from Alaska and B.C. has declared a state of emergency related to Pacific salmon populations, and says First Nations need to be more involved in managing traditional resources. 

Chinook (king) and chum are the major salmon species on the Yukon and Kuskokwim. They’ve been at historically low numbers in both rivers for years. The coho (silver) returns have also dropped.This will be the fourth year subsistence fishing has been closed or severely restricted on both rivers. The region is bracing for another dismal subsistence harvest.

Following a thaw slump, the water becomes cloudy and full of sediment, potentially suffocating the eggs of spawning sheefish. Scientists are concerned that permafrost thaw could lead to declines in the sheefish population, a staple food for many Alaskans.

Researchers found the global decline in water storage was equivalent to 17 Lake Meads — the largest reservoir in the U.S.

As Alaska faces an increased risk of spring breakup flooding this year, scientists are asking residents to share photos documenting major rivers’ progress from ice to water to help them predict with more accuracy where flooding might occur.

Alaska researchers will continue a controversial study this year on a parasite in Yukon River chinook salmon that requires killing hundreds of fish, a move that’s drawn sharp criticism from Canadian experts. 

First Nations groups in the Yukon Territory and Alaska GOP Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration are advancing discussions about whether hatcheries could help stem a steep crash in salmon populations on the Yukon River.

The relocation between from Newtok to Mertavik has taken time and community members stay patient as local, state, and federal agencies figure out the complex funding and logistical hurdles.

The region of Catalonia, northeastern Spain, is in its worst drought since measurements began. The sheep reservoir supplies water to the city of Barcelona.

The 'phantom' Tulare Lake once the biggest lake west of the Mississippi and drained for agriculture purposes is slowly reemerging.

Climate change has been observed for hundreds of years by the plant specialists of three Odawa Tribes in the Upper Great Lakes along Lake Michigan. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is the focus of two National Park Service (NPS) studies of Odawa Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of plants, ecosystems, and climate change. Data collected during these studies contributed to developing Plant Gathering Agreements between tribes and parks. This analysis derived from 95 ethnographic interviews conducted by University of Arizona (UofA) anthropologists in partnership with tribal appointed representatives. Odawa people recognized in the park 288 plants and five habitats of traditional and contemporary concern. Tribal representatives explained that 115 of these traditional plants and all five habitats are known from multigenerational eyewitness accounts to have been impacted by climate change. The TEK study thus represents what Native people know about the environment. These research findings are neither intended to test their TEK nor the findings of Western science.

World leaders already have many options to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and protect people, according to the United Nations report.

A study published in Nature Climate Change examined how 10 big rivers in the Arctic had moved 50 years, and found they did not migrate as much as expected.

This weekend marks the third anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of the global pandemic — and Juneau’s wastewater is awash with COVID. 

At times, the water level in the river Skjoma in Narvik is so low that the salmon freezes to death. But Statkraft has refused to release more water into the watercourse. Now the NVE intervenes.

National Weather Service says Alaska has been lucky to have three La Niña years. Due to climate change we could see a shift into warmer La and El Nino's.

Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid. Scientists are trying to figure out why

Warming soils beneath Utqiagvik are triggering erosion that threatens homes, infrastructure and cultural resources. The North Slope has seen some of the fastest changes in coastal erosion in the nation.