Study: Lagoons from Arctic's forgotten coast vulnerable to climate change and humandevelopment
coastal lagoons; Arctic Ocean; Chukchi Sea; ecology; fish assemblages; ecosystem resilience; climate change; human impacts; subsistence harvest; conservationIn the Southern Chukchi Sea Region of the Alaskan Arctic, approximately 40% of the coastline consists of freshwater-brackish lagoons and the gravel spits that separate them from the ocean.
Despite recognition of the ecological and cultural importance of these habitats from as far back as the 1950s, the body of knowledge surrounding lagoons of the SCSR contains many knowledge gaps and fails to comprehensively capture the dynamic nature of both biotic and abiotic factors that define the functional ecology of these habitats. This report synthesizes the available knowledge of SCSR lagoons, including geomorphology, hydrology, food web structure, and local knowledge.