AKOATS - Alaska Online Aquatic Temperature Site: An inventory of continuous stream and lake temperature monitoring stations across Alaska

Through a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on behalf of the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative (WALCC), we have developed a comprehensive statewide inventory of current and historic continuous monitoring locations for stream and lake temperature. This project is one component of the LCC’s strategy to help partners understand and prepare for potential climate impacts to freshwater systems across Alaska.This project compiled a statewide catalog of monitoring locations using a common set of attributes. The inventory is fully accessible via an online mapping interface or it can be viewed and queried directly within commercial GIS software. Future LCC projects will entail gathering the aquatic temperature measurement data. Alaska’s collection of stream and lake temperature monitoring sensors is quite young and rather sparsely arrayed across the vast state. This inventory identified only 95 actively monitored stream sites with five or more years of continuous data and only 18 activelymonitored lakes with five or more years of continuous data. Many of these sites are concentrated in relatively small focal research areas. A little more than half (54%) of Alaska’s 157 sub basins have any documented, continuous aquatic temperature data. While Alaska’s size and access challenges have hampered past monitoring efforts, numerous ongoing projects offer promising opportunities to develop a robust temperature monitoring network. This inventory provides a statewide catalog of historic and ongoing monitoring, creating awareness across administrative and hydrographic boundaries.AKOATS also provides an easily accessible means for scientists to share new site locations. Related work guided and funded by the Western Alaska Landscape Conservation Cooperative include: piloting regional monitoring networks in Bristol Bay and the Kodiak Archipelago, developing Alaska specific temperature monitoring standards, and plans to convene water resource experts to discuss possible mechanisms to increase data discovery and sharing among partners.