# Presentation: 247483

## The Yukon River Basin Assessment and Integrated Climate-Effects Monitoring Network

## The Yukon Basin holds large stores of carbon

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_**Boreal Forest Ecosystems**_
** ****25 - 30% of Global Soil Pool**
** ****30% Global Vegetation Pool**

_**The Yukon Basin holds large stores of carbon**_

## Globally and locally significant rapid change

- Permafrost  Temperature

- Romanovsky, 1999

**1978**

**2002**

**(courtesy of B. Riordan)**

**Notes:**
The primary issue driving the Yukon Assessment is the thawing of permafrost that is occurring in the boreal forest of central Alaska and throughout northern latitudes.

## Will thawing permafrost greatly accelerate CO2 flux? 

- Wetter,warmer

_**Will thawing permafrost greatly accelerate CO**__**2**__** flux?**_

*Harden et al, GCB Dec. 2000*

** ****Landscape is Heterogeneous, Controlled by Soil Drainage**
** ****Permafrost Landscape Highly “Elastic” in C exchange**

**Notes:**
The thawing permafrost is not just a local concern.  Depending on the direction climate takes in the future, the thawing permafrost could release large quantities of carbon now frozen in the landscape into the atmosphere and surface waters.  
Complex interactions of Permafrost Melt, Burning, Drainage and Carbon cycling:
	Landscape Heterogeneity

## Coastal Ocean Issues:

- The largest coastal C sinks are considered to be “the high-productivity waters of the Bering Sea shelf where nutrient and sediment inputs from coastal rivers are large and variable”
-              (OCCC Strategic Plan: Doney et al, 2004).

_** **__**River export of carbon is changing with permafrost thawing**_        (Striegl et al, 2005)

**Notes:**
Although the export of carbon from the landscape to surface waters is much smaller than the exchanges with the atmosphere, small changes in carbon flux to the oceans can have large effects on coastal ecosystems.

## The Yukon River Basin Assessment and Integrated Climate-Effects Monitoring Network

*OBJECTIVE: **To use a multi-agency collaboration to compute whole-system hydrologic, carbon, and energy budgets for a common frame of reference** **(a watershed),** and to assess how changes in those balances affect human activity and ecological function.*

## Assessment Science Questions

- How will increases in temperature affect the hydrology of the Yukon River Basin?
- Will carbon “feedbacks” to the atmosphere from thawing permafrost potentially enhance global climate warming?
- How will warming affect the abundance, quality, and distribution of subsistence resources?
- What strategies are needed to mitigate or adapt to the likely effects of warming in northern latitudes?

**Notes:**
So, we are faced in central Alaska with a rapidly changing landscape that represents a potentially large change in coastal and global systems.  However, if you consider the baseline information on this region, you see that we have a carbon flux tower in Barrow and southern Manitoba, with little tracking of flux or ecosystem changes in the area where the changes are most rapidly occurring.  This lead us to a set of critical science questions that will drive the development of an integrated tracking system in Boreal landscapes

## Multi-component –Multi scale Observations For a Common Frame of Reference

**Notes:**
The monitoring needs are complex.  We need to understand the processes controlling carbon dynamics, which requires research at the plot or small watershed scale, but we also need to project that process understanding to the regional scale to understand the global ramifications of the changes taking place. Further, we want to be able to track the entire carbon cycle, both flux vertiacally between the land and the atmosphere, and flux laterally into the coastal ocean.

## Models that link terrestrial and aquatic systems:

## The Yukon Watershed is entirely above 60o North Latitude

- The Yukon Watershed is entirely above 60o North Latitude

**Notes:**
The Yukon river basin is unique in that it is relatively accessible compared to the other northern rivers, and is one of two major rivers that is entirely within the permafrost zone.

## Significant federal lands in the Yukon Basin

-  5 National Parks/ NRAs  (Vital Signs)
- 8 Wildlife Refuges
- 3 Large military land holdings (CRREL)

- Clow, 2006

## Proposed Data Collection- USGS/Canada

- Fixed river stations and research watersheds

- Flux Tower

- (YRITWC)

## Integrated Regional Assessment of Effects of Climate in the Yukon River Basin

**Water**

**Integrated Regional Assessment of Effects of Climate in the Yukon River Basin**

- FIA, USGS, LTER, BLM, UA, NRCAN

- FIA/FHM- USGS, NPS, NRCS, Research & Surveys

**Soil**

- USGS, UAF, UAA, CRREL,  YRITWC, NOAA, Alaska DEC

-   FWS, NPS, UA,
- USGS

**Air**

-   NOAA, USGS, UAF,
- FLUXNET

**Biology**

## The Yukon River Basin:  A rapidly changing landscape

**Brooks**** Range**

**Alaska**** Range**

**Seward **
**Peninsula**

**Fairbanks**

**Anchorage**

**MODIS Satellite, 10 August, 2005**

## Scope of a Socio-Economic Assessment

**Risk reduction Strategies**
**land use, mitigation, **
**emergency response**

**Scientific data **
**extent, magnitude, probability of MULTIPLE natural hazards**

**Vulnerability**
**physical, environmental, **
**social, economic**  (property)

**Natural hazard**
**risk analysis**

**Acceptable **
**community risk**

**Natural hazards risk reduction decision-making**

- Shapiro, written comm.

**Notes:**
The multi-hazard vulnerabilityy & risk assessment incorporates hazard information including flood extents, landslide extents and potential earthquake scenarios; vulnerability information includes location of some critical infrastructure and planning information (zoning and property assessment values).  

## Thermo-karst wetlands emitted 13 times more CH4 to the atmosphere than the permafrost plateau sites on an annual basis.

- Thermo-karst wetlands emitted 13 times more CH4 to the atmosphere than the permafrost plateau sites on an annual basis.

- mmol CH4 m-2 hr-1

- -0.2

- 0.0

- 0.2

- 0.4

- 0.6

- 0.8

- 1.0

- 3/20

- 4/9

- 4/29

- 5/19

- 6/8

- 6/28

- 7/18

- 8/7

- 8/27

- 9/16

- Thermokarst wetlands

- Thermokarst edges

- Permafrost plateau

_***METHANE FLUX***_

- Wickland, 2006

## Multi-tier Monitoring DesignScale-appropriate monitoring linked through common indicators

**Tier One** – Intensive Research Areas
-  Relatively small number of specific sites representing important processes
**Tier Two** – Gradient-based surveys
- Mapping of condition using sites representative of a specific condition class and indicator coverages.
**Tier Three – **Extensive Inventories and Surveys
- Statistical representation of the population
**Tier Four** –Remote Sensing and Mapping
- Wall-to-wall coverage

- Increasing spatial resolution

- Increasing temporal resolution

**Notes:**
Multi-tier (multiphase) monitoring designs are efficient ways to collect data and estimate variables at different scales.  These designs have been used for decades in land inventories.

FIA citation...

## FOREST SERVICE INVENTORY SAMPLE PLAN       (12-15 years)

**FOREST SERVICE INVENTORY SAMPLE PLAN       (12-15 years)**

**Tanana River**
**5 yrs**

- Draft, Van Hees, 2005

## Expectations for the talk

-  Conceptual description
- Relevance to IPY goals
- Partnerships
- Related work within DOI

## Addresses all IPY Research Themes:

- Past and Present Changes
- Global and Regional Multi-scale Linkages
- New Frontiers of Understanding
- Establishing a Northern Vantage Point
- Human Dimension: Sustainability

**Addresses all IPY Research Themes:**