Alaska encompasses an area of about 365 million acres, more than the combined area of the next three largest states—Texas, California, and Montana. The state is bound on three sides by water, and its coastline, which stretches about 6,600 miles (excluding island shorelines, bays and fjords) and accounts for more than half of the entire U.S. coastline, varies from rocky shores, sandy beaches, and high cliffs to river deltas, mud flats, and barrier islands. The coastline constantly changes due to wave action, ocean currents, storms, and river deposits and is subject to periodic, yet severe, erosion. Alaska also has more than 12,000 rivers, including three of the ten largest in the country—the Yukon, Kuskokwim, and Copper Rivers. (See fig. 1.) While these and other rivers provide food, transportation, and recreation for people, as well as habitat for fish and wildlife, their waters also shape the landscape. In particular, ice jams on rivers and flooding of riverbanks during spring breakup change the contour of valleys, wetlands, and human settlements. Permafrost (permanently frozen subsoil) is found over approximately 80 percent of Alaska. It is deepest and most extensive on the Arctic Coastal Plain and decreases in depth, eventually becoming discontinuous further south. In northern Alaska, where the permafrost is virtually everywhere, most buildings are elevated to minimize the amount of heat transferred to the ground to avoid melting the permafrost. In northern barrier island communities, the permafrost literally helps hold the island together. However, rising temperatures in recent years have led to widespread thawing of the permafrost, causing serious damage. As permafrost melts, buildings and runways sink, bulk fuel tank areas are threatened, and slumping and erosion of land ensue. (See fig. 2.) Rising temperatures have also affected the thickness, extent, and duration of sea ice that forms along the western and northern coasts. The loss of sea ice leaves coasts more vulnerable to waves, storm surges, and erosion. When combined with the thawing of permafrost along the coast, this loss of sea ice poses a serious threat to coastal Alaska Native villages. Furthermore, loss of sea ice alters the habitat and accessibility of many of the marine mammals that Alaska Natives depend upon for subsistence. As the ice melts or moves away early, walruses, seals, and polar bears move with it, taking them too far away to be hunted. Although Alaska is by far the largest state, it is one of the least populated, with about 630,000 people—of which 19 percent, or about 120,000, are Alaska Natives. Over half of the state’s population is concentrated in the Kenai Peninsula, Anchorage, and the Matanuska-Susitna area in south central Alaska. Many Alaska Natives, however, live in places long inhabited by their ancestors in rural areas in western, northern, and interior Alaska. Alaskan Natives are generally divided into six major groupings: Unangan (Aleuts), Alutiiq (Pacific Eskimos), Iñupiat (Northern Eskimos), Yup’ik (Bering Sea Eskimos), Athabascan (Interior Indians), and Tlingit and Haida (Southeast Coastal Indians). For generations, these Alaska Natives have used the surrounding waters and land to hunt, fish, and gather wild plants for food. (See fig. 3.) These subsistence activities are intricately woven into the fabric of their lives. Subsistence activities require a complex network of social relationships within the Native community. For example, there is a division of labor among those who harvest, those who prepare, and those who distribute the food. These activities establish and promote the basic values of Alaska Native culture—generosity, respect for the knowledge and guidance of elders, self-esteem for the successful hunter(s), and community cooperation—and they form the foundation for continuity between generations. As their environment changes along with the climate, however, Alaska Natives have few adaptive strategies, and their traditional way of life is becoming increasingly vulnerable. A typical coastal or river Native village has a population of a couple of hundred people and generally contains only basic infrastructure—homes, a school, a village store, a health clinic, a washateria, a church, city or tribal offices, and a post office. The school is usually the largest building in the community. Since many villages do not have running water, the washateria plays an important role; it not only contains laundry facilities, but also shower and toilet facilities—which residents must pay a fee to use. Many village homes do not have sanitation facilities and rely on honey buckets— 5-gallon buckets that serve as a toilet—or a flush and haul system. Most of the villages that are not accessible by roads contain an airport runway that provides the only year-round access to the community. The runways are generally adjacent to the village or a short distance away. Other infrastructure in a village may consist of a bulk fuel tank farm, a power plant, a water treatment facility, a water tank, meat drying racks, a village sewage lagoon or dump site, and, for some villages, commercial structures such as tanneries. Most river villages also have a barge landing area where goods are delivered to the community during the ice-free period. The government structure of Native villages may contain several distinct entities that perform administrative tasks, including making decisions about how to address flooding and erosion. Alaska’s constitution and state laws allow for several types of regional and local government units, such as boroughs—units of government that are similar to the counties found in many other states. About a third of Alaska is made up of 16 organized boroughs. The remaining two-thirds of the state is sparsely populated land that is considered a single “unorganized borough.” At the village level, a federally recognized tribal government may coexist with a city government, which may also be under a borough government. Alaska has more than 200 federally recognized tribal governments. In addition to these various government entities, federal agencies that provide assistance for flooding and erosion also work with local and regional Native corporations. Federal law directed the establishment of these corporations under the laws of the state of Alaska, and the corporations are organized as for-profit entities that also have nonprofit arms. In December 1971, Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which directed the establishment of 12 for-profit regional corporations—one for each geographic region comprised of Natives having a common heritage and sharing common interests—and over 200 village corporations. These corporations would become the vehicle for distributing land and monetary benefits to Alaska Natives to provide a fair and just settlement of aboriginal land claims in Alaska. The act permitted the conveyance of about 44 million acres of land to Alaska Native corporations, along with cash payments of almost $1 billion. (See appendix II for a list of the regional corporations and the corresponding nonprofit arms that provide social services to the villages and also help them address problems, including flooding and erosion.) Federal, state, and local government agencies share responsibility for controlling and responding to flooding and erosion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has responsibility for planning and constructing streambank and shoreline erosion protection and flood control structures under a specific set of requirements. The Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is responsible for protecting small watersheds. A number of other federal agencies, such as the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, also have responsibility for protecting certain infrastructure from flooding and erosion. On the state side, the Division of Emergency Services responds to state disaster declarations dealing with flooding and erosion when local communities request assistance. The Alaska Department of Community and Economic Development helps communities reduce losses and damage from flooding and erosion. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities funds work to protect runways from erosion. Local governments such as the North Slope Borough have also funded erosion control and flood protection projects. In addition to government agencies, the Denali Commission, created by Congress in 1998, while not directly responsible for responding to flooding and erosion, is charged with addressing crucial needs of rural Alaska communities, particularly isolated Alaska Native villages. The membership of the commission consists of federal and state cochairs and a five-member panel from statewide organization presidents. The mission of the commission is to partner with tribal, federal, state, and local governments to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government services; to build and ensure the operation and maintenance of Alaska’s basic infrastructure; and to develop a well-trained labor force. The commission funds infrastructure projects throughout the state, ranging from health clinics to bulk fuel tanks. The commission has also funded the construction of new infrastructure when flooding and erosion threatened the existing structures. According to federal and Alaska state officials that we consulted, most of the 213 Alaska Native villages are subject to flooding and erosion. However, it is difficult to assess the severity of the problem because quantifiable data on flooding and erosion are not available for remote locations. Villages located on the coast or along rivers are subject to both annual and episodic flooding and erosion. In addition, river villages are also susceptible to flooding and erosion caused by ice jams, snow and glacial melts, rising sea levels, and heavy rainfall. Flooding and erosion affects 184 out of 213, or 86.4 percent, of Alaska Native villages to some extent, according to studies and information provided to us by federal and Alaska state officials. The 184 affected villages consist of coastal and river villages throughout the state. Figure 4 shows the location of these villages, and table 1 shows the number of affected villages by ANCSA region. All 184 Native villages affected by flooding and erosion are listed in appendix III.