Evaluating Flood and Erosion Risk to Support Community Adaptation in Rural Alaska

Author: Dana Brunswick, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

Video Presentation

Abstract

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC), through its Climate Initiatives Program, is working to address the growing challenges that climate change poses to rural Alaska communities. Across the state, 144 communities face increasing threats to infrastructure from erosion, flooding, and permafrost degradation. Within this Climate Initiatives program, the Center for Environmentally Threatened Communities (CETC) provides free technical support to address these hazards. CETC and its partners assist communities by providing risk assessments, planning and development services, identification of funding opportunities, grant writing, project management, and capacity building. Understanding community vulnerability requires both site-specific analysis of historical flood and erosion magnitude and frequency, as well as evaluation of future conditions. These analyses support informed, long-term decision-making around adaptation strategies such as mitigation, managed retreat, relocation, or site expansion. This presentation will describe key environmental threats facing the communities CETC supports and highlight community-specific examples of erosion and flood impacts, along with approaches that have been used to address them.

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