Arctic Resilience: Fire, Food, Contaminant, and Education Nexus along the Yukon River Watershed

Abstract

River watersheds are among the most complex terrestrial features in Alaska, performing valuable ecosystem functions and providing services for human society. Rivers are vital to both estuarine and aquatic biota and play important roles in biogeochemical cycles and physical processes. The functions of watersheds have been used as indicators for ecosystem health. Running through the boreal forest, the Yukon River watershed has a long history of human activity, but has not been given the holistic and interdisciplinary research attention of the other great American river systems. By using hypothesis based monitoring of key watershed functions, we can gain insights to regime shifting stresses such as increasing fire on the movement of toxins, impact on subsistence plants and animals, as well as domestic species. The Yukon watershed provides a broad scale topic for research. More research would establish or expand: 1. A baseline against which future resilience related change can be more accurately assessed 2. Promote interdisciplinary research 3. Expand graduate and undergraduate opportunities 4. Advance rural education opportunities and sustainable regional economic analysis 5. Promote citizen science.