Overview
Alaska’s Cook Inlet watershed boasts world-class wild salmon streams, including the streams of the lower Kenai Peninsula which support healthy sport and commercial fisheries, and provide important subsistence resources for Alaska Natives and other groups. Land use has changed dramatically over the last ten years in these watersheds as logging, road building, gravel extraction and ATV use has increased. The spruce bark beetle infestation has severely altered forested lands and, in 2002, major floods reshaped salmon stream channels and riparian habitat. Long-term monitoring is essential to maintain stream health and to protect these watersheds that support important public resources, particularly during a time of rapid landscape and climate changes.
Inletkeeper Strategies
In 1998, in partnership with the Homer Soil and Water Conservation District, Cook Inletkeeper began an in-depth water quality study to better understand the ecological effects of land-use activities and climate change on the area’s economically, socially, and culturally valuable salmon streams: Ninilchik River, Deep Creek, Stariski Creek, and Anchor River. Using EPA-approved or Standard Methods, Inletkeeper’s Stream Ecologist monitors twelve sites for discharge, temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, nitrate-nitrogen, ammonia-nitrogen, orthophosphate, total phosphorus, apparent color, turbidity, settleable solids, total suspended solids and bacteria. Monitoring goals are to 1) inventory baseline water quality in lower Kenai Peninsula’s salmon streams, 2) compare data with state water quality standards, and 3) inform citizens and natural resource managers about concerns related to salmon stream protection.
The Salmon Stream Monitoring Program was developed under the direction of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of scientists from federal and state agencies. The TAC chose sampling sites, determined the sampling frequency, and reviewed the chosen methods to best address concerns related to salmon stream health. Sampling and analysis methods were chosen so that data could be compared with data from other professional-level studies both in Alaska and around the United States. All quality assurance methods are described in the Project’s Quality Assurance Project Plan.
Data collected during this time have shown increasing temperature trends, where summer temperatures consistently exceed Alaska’s water quality standards for fish protection, and warmer temperatures are occurring earlier and for more days each year. In addition to a disturbing warming trend, Inletkeeper’s data suggests increasing amounts of sediment entering stream channels, high phosphorus levels, and sharp declines in macroinvertebrate communities.
Due to limited water quality and habitat monitoring and research in Alaska, it is difficult to know if these same conditions and trends are occurring in other significant salmon watersheds. Despite the disproportionate effects of global warming in Alaska – and the well-known association between warming water temperatures and reduced salmonid survivorship - there is little or no consistent, long-term temperature data for salmon streams. Equally important, there is no consistent and reliable way to distinguish temperature changes wrought by landscape change from those caused by climate change.
Future Work
With these recent signs of temperature and biological stress, Cook Inletkeeper is taking its scientific work to a new level, to:
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Develop a practical and cost-effective template for understanding and responding to the impacts of climate change and land-use development on wild salmon and salmon habitat.
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Assess landscape change by performing an impervious surface analysis on the watersheds of the lower Kenai Peninsula to see if water quality concerns can be correlated to increasing urbanization.
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Promote and support the expanded use of community-based science on a watershed and regional geographic scale.
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Build local grassroots support to address the most immediate threats facing the abundance and diversity of wild salmon and salmon habitat in Alaska and beyond.
Additional Resources
Homer Soil and Water Conservation District
Salmon Stream Monitoring Program’s Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP)
