Current Environmental Studies - Alaska

NSL # STUDY TITLE PLANNING AREA  PROJECT CONTACT PARTNERS  
PLANNED NEW STARTS
AK-23-01 Tidal Flow Characteristics and Associated Biological Use of Cook Inlet Cook Inlet    
AK-23-02 Cook Inlet Area-wide Recreation and Tourism Inventory Cook Inlet    
AK-23-03 Pipeline Gas Release Frequency, Scenarios, and Impacts All Alaska Planning Areas    
 *Note: The procurement of any study is contingent upon availability of funding
ONGOING STUDIES 
Biology
AK-22-01 Lower Cook Inlet Fish and Invertebrate Community Composition, Distribution, and Density    Cook Inlet  Cook Inlet Burril USGS
AK-21-06 GPS Tagging of Seabirds to Obtain Areas of Foraging Aggregations and Forage Fish Schools in Lower Cook Inlet Cook Inlet Burril USGS
AK-21-03 Resource Areas to Support Marine Resource Management in the Cook Inlet Region Cook Inlet Burril ADF&G
AK-20-11 The Impact of Marine Fish Communities on Red-throated Loon Productivity in the Beaufort Sea Beaufort Burril USGS
AK-20-10 Monitoring the Recovery of Seabirds and Forage Fish Following a Major Ecosystem Disruption in Lower Cook Inlet (LCI) Cook Inlet Burril USGS
NT-20-10 A sustainable, integrated AMBON in the US Arctic Beaufort
Chukchi		 Bonsell NOAA
AK-19-02-15 Understanding Spatial Dynamics and Movement of Pacific Halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) in the Northern Bering Sea Chukchi Bering Burril CMI
AK-19-02-14 Delineating Species and Stock Boundaries in the Arctic-Bering Cisco Species Pair  Beaufort
Chukchi		 Bonsell CMI
AK-19-02-13 Harnessing the Power of eDNA as a Real-time Assessment tool of Nearshore Arctic Marine Communities  Beaufort Burril CMI
AK-19-02-10 Are expanding Pink Salmon populations in the Arctic produced from regional watersheds? Beaufort
Chukchi		 Burril CMI
AK-20-07 Early Detection Plan for Marine Non-native Species on the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Beaufort
Chukchi		 Burril Smithsonian
AK-19-02-02 Kelp Restoration in the Boulder Patch Beaufort Bonsell CMI
AK-19-02-03 Utilization of the Under-ice Habitat by Arctic Cod in the Western Arctic Ocean: A Multidisciplinary Collaborative Study Beaufort
Chukchi		 Burril CMI
AK-19-01 Impacts of Sedimentation and Drivers of Variability in the Boulder Patch Community, Beaufort Sea Beaufort Bonsell UT; UAF
AK-18-01 Environmental Resource Areas: Developing Products to Support Oil-Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) All Alaska Planning Areas Burril USGS
Fates and Effects
AK-21-02 Synthesis of Contaminants Data for Cook Inlet: Evaluation of Existing Data as "Baseline Conditions" and Recommendations for Further Monitoring Cook Inlet Smith CIRCAC
AK-20-05 Improvements to the Oil Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA) Input Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) and Validation All Planning Areas Crowley  
AK-19-02-16 Biological effects of Cook Inlet crude oil degradation products and suspect screening of oxidized polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)  Cook Inlet Smith CMI
AK-19-02-11 Investigating the Impacts of Oil Exposure and Changing Snow Cover on Sea Ice Microbial Communities Beaufort Raymond CMI
AK-19-02-12 Hydrocarbon Oxidation Product in Cook Inlet: Formation and Bioaccumulation in Mussels Cook Inlet Smith CMI
Information Management
AK-22-06 Retrospective Synthesis of Historical Alaska OCS Oil and Gas Activities All Alaska Planning Areas Smith  
AK-21-x07 Feasibility Study for Renewable Energy Technologies in Alaska Offshore Waters All Alaska Planning Areas Burril NREL
AK-20-02 Alaska Marine Science Symposium All Planning Areas Burril NPRB
AK-19-02-09 Arctic Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Structure Data Analysis and Synthesis Beaufort
Chukchi		 Bonsell CMI
AK-19-02 Alaska Coastal Marine Institute All Alaska Planning Areas Crowley CMI
Marine Mammals and Protected Species
AK-21-04 Bowhead Whale Migration Patterns along the Alaska Beaufort Shelf in During a Period of Rapid Environmental Change Beaufort Crowley UAF
AK-21-01 Winter Ringed Seal Density within Beaufort Sea Oil and Gas Project Areas Beaufort Burril ADF&G
AK-20-04 Quantifying Sea Otter Abundance, Distribution, and Foraging Intake in Cook Inlet Alaska Cook Inlet Bonsell USGS
AK-20-01 Cook Inlet Beluga Acoustic Monitoring in Lower Cook Inlet (LCI) Rivers Cook Inlet Burril NOAA
AK-19-02-05 Evaluating Novel Assessment Approaches for Coastal Ice Seal Haulout Areas and Behavior in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea Beaufort Bonsell CMI
Physical Oceanography
AK-22-04 Cook Inlet Physical Oceanography: Synthesis and Modeling Cook Inlet Crowley UAF
AK-19-02-17 Satellite Ocean Color Remote Sensing of Water Mass Dynamics in Cook Inlet Cook Inlet Smith CMI
AK-19-03 Landfast Ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and Under Ice Circulation Processes on the Beaufort Sea Shelf Beaufort
Chukchi		 Smith UAF
AK-17-01 Wave and Hydrodynamic Observations and Modeling in the Nearshore Beaufort Sea Beaufort Crowley  
Social Systems
AK-21-05 Coastal and Submerged Historic Properties and Pre-contact Sites on the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf All Alaska Planning Areas Brooks  
AK-20-06 Subsistence Harvest and Iñupiaq Knowledge of Beluga Whales for Kaktovik, Alaska Beaufort Brooks ADF&G
AK-19-05 Monitoring of the Cross Island Subsistence Whale Hunt for Effects from Liberty DPP Beaufort Brooks  
AK-19-02-18 From Beaufort to Bering Seas: Analyzing Relationships of Communication and Risk-sharing in Anticipation of Increased Hydrocarbon Traffic off Alaska’s Northern Coasts Beaufort
Chukchi		 Brooks CMI
AK-15-05 Traditional Knowledge Implementation: Accessing Arctic Community Panels of Subject Matter Experts Beaufort
Chukchi		 Brooks NSB
RECENTLY COMPLETED
AK-20-x09 Kenai Peninsula Borough Socioeconomic Profile, 2008 to 2020 Cook Inlet Brooks  
AK-Ofc-01 NOAA-BOEM Partnership: Range-Wide Distribution of Cook Inlet Beluga Whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the Winter Cook Inlet Bonsell NOAA
AK-20-08 Comprehensive Synthesis of Impacts to Marine Mammals from Oil and Gas Activities in the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), 2000–2020 Beaufort
Chukchi,
Cook Inlet		 Crowley  
AK-20-03 Update of River Overflood on Sea Ice and Strudel Scour Database Beaufort Smith  
AK-19-02-08 Exploring radium isotopes as tracers of groundwater inputs, flushing rates, and produced water in Cook Inlet Cook Inlet Crowley CMI
AK-19-02-04 Western Beaufort and Chukchi Sea Surface Current Analysis Beaufort
Chukchi		 Crowley CMI
AK-18-x11 Hydrocarbon Seeps in the Lower Cook Inlet, Gulf of Alaska, Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea OCS Planning Areas All Alaska Planning Areas Foreman UAF
AK-19-07 Model-based essential fish habitat (EFH) descriptions for Arctic cod, saffron cod and snow crab in the Alaskan Arctic Beaufort
Chukchi		 Burril UAF
AK-19-02-07 Ocean Migration and Behavior of Steelhead Kelts in the Northern Gulf of Alaska, Examined with Satellite Telemetry Cook Inlet Burril CMI
AK-17-x11 Nearshore fish surveys in the Beaufort Sea Beaufort Burril USGS
AK-17-03 Marine Bird Distribution and Abundance in Offshore Waters Beaufort
Chukchi 
Cook Inlet		 Raymond USFWS
AK-17-02 Wave Energy Converter Impact Assessment Gulf of Alaska Crowley UAF
AK-16-07 Arctic Integrated Ecosystem Survey, Phase II Beaufort
Chukchi		 Burril NOAA;
USFWS
AK-16-05 Community Based Monitoring: LEO Network Beaufort
Chukchi
Cook Inlet		 Brooks ANTHC
AK-16-02 Collaboration with North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) Arctic Marine Research Program Beaufort
Chukchi		 Raymond NPRB
RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS
  • BOEM-University of Alaska-State of Alaska Coastal Marine Institute (CMI)
  • North Slope Science Initiative (NSSI)
  • National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
  • Federal Inter-agency Agreements: e.g. NOAA-National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)/Marine Mammal Laboratory (MML)/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL); U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS); U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE); National Park Service (NPS); National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)
  • Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G)
  • Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)
  • University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF); University of Texas-Austin (UT)
  • North Pacific Research Board (NPRB)
  • Arctic Landscape Conservation Cooperative
  • Arctic Council/Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP)
  • National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP)
  • Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council (CIRCAC)
  • Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS)
  • Department of Fisheries and Oceanography Canada (DFO)
  • Industry Studies
  • Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC)
  • Alaska North Slope Borough (NSB)