NOAA Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grant for an Alaskan Native Community.

 Levelock Village Council (the Council) is the governing body of the Native Village of Levelock

(Levelock), a federally recognized sovereign nation and Alaska Native Village. This NOAA grant was to support resilience against volatile shoreline erosion and impacts from climate change.

 

Levelock is located along the Kvichak River in the Bristol Bay area and Lake and Peninsula Borough, 280 miles southwest of Anchorage. Levelock is around 10 miles from the mouth of Kvichak Bay, an inlet of Bristol Bay. The geographic coordinates of Levelock are 59°6’37” N and 156°51’31” W. The study was conducted along the bank of the west-northwest bank of the Kvichak river that the Native Village of Levelock sits along, approximately 1 mile in length. This site is important to the Tribe since the threat of erosion along this bank is impacting critical tribal infrastructure and culturally important resources every year.

 

The NOAA funds were used to conduct a Climate Impact Statement (CIS) for the Native Village of Levelock. A Climate Impact Statement is an innovative climate assessment tool that utilizes machine learning techniques developed by Two Bears Environmental Consulting LLC (TBEC) to predict the timing and magnitude of potential environmental risks from future potential climates. The CIS assessed how future climate change will impact the erosion of the Kvichak River, providing the community with mitigation strategies that will improve community resilience in the short and long term, while maintaining necessary ecosystem services that the Kvichak provides to the Tribe. The CIS was conducted directly with stakeholder engagement and produced a regional-scale resilience plan that can be used to assess the feasibility of mitigation options. Included in the study is outreach and education of the Villagers.

 

It is critical that Levelock understands how changing climate may pose risks to the Kvichak shoreline erosion and community infrastructure that is needed for security, safety, and survivability of the Tribe. The community heavily relies on the Kvichak River for supply services as barge and air are the only two methods for receiving supplies. However, the bank has a history of eroding resulting in loss of infrastructure and homes. The Kvichak River is also home to one of the most sustainable sockeye salmon runs in the world, which is threatened by increased erosion, which degrades salmon spawning habitat. The Levelock community depends on sockeye salmon as a culturally significant subsistence food for the Tribe. The risk of erosion is imminent and understanding where and when the erosion will likely take place, as well as how to mitigate the effects provides Levelock with critical information for prioritizing their mitigation options. Increasing the resilience of the coastline has a direct impact on the health and longevity of the whole Village.