Natural Resources

October 25, 2019 Update: Presentation is now available for download, link below. Ocean acidification is expected to impact Alaska’s marine species and the $5.8 billion seafood industry. Higher acidity water affects the ability of shell-building organisms, like crabs, to develop and maintain their shells and may also affect the behavior of some fish species. Alaska is predisposed to ocean acidification due to its colder water temperature, making it likely that we will feel the effects sooner and more intensely than other regions.

This summer, Alaska’s high temperatures broke records causing more Alaskans than ever to experience the effects of widespread wildfires. Wildfires, along with unstable permafrost, and rain-in-winter are natural hazards of climate change that put residents and property at risk. Assessing the costs, risks, and actions necessary to adapt to or mitigate damage from these hazards in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon, is the subject of a newly funded 4-year, $1.1 million National Science Foundation project, led by ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt. 

Can countries be fair, prosperous, and green? That’s one of the questions that Kevin Berry, assistant professor of economics at ISER, considered with his colleagues at a recent meeting of the Beijer Young Scholars Programme in Stockholm, Sweden. 

ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, visited the area damaged by fire in Anchorage this summer with members of the Rabbit Creek Community Council to observe the damage and support their efforts at preventing fires in their south Anchorage community. 

This summer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed two lakes in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to control the spread of the freshwater invasive plant Elodea by floatplanes and boats. Clean-up efforts for the two lakes are predicted to cost $1 million.

ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, is working with researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Energy and Power and College of Engineering and Mines to examine food, energy and water (FEW) security issues in rural Alaska and determine how small-scale renewable energy might ease the issues. 

David Riley, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton, UK, will talk about the protocol he’s developed for comprehensive gas hydrate development in Alaska at a lunchtime talk Thursday, May 30, in ISER's conference room. The protocol summarizes data from a range of sources and the positions of different stakeholder groups into one framework, allowing them to be more easily understood by any decision maker.