One of the Cook Inlet RCAC mandates under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 is to devise and manage a comprehensive program of monitoring the environmental impacts of the operations of terminal facilities and of crude oil tankers while operating in …Cook Inlet. To this end, Cook Inlet RCAC has put significant efforts towards increasing our knowledge of Cook Inlet’s environment to better be able to identify any potential chronic, acute, or potential impacts. We have taken a multi-pronged approach, with the overall goal of building a database of Cook Inlet coastal habitats that will allow us to better plan for and protect sensitive shorelines and improve our ability to detect change. The major goals of our coastal monitoring program are to: - expand a coastal mapping program that includes both aerial imaging and detailed on-the-ground data collections;
- conduct an environmental monitoring program that identifies populations of important intertidal and subtidal species, analyzes background concentrations of potential contaminants in intertidal and subtidal sediments, and analyzes tissues of organisms living and feeding in Cook Inlet.
- collect source data to better be able to identify natural versus anthropogenic inputs of hydrocarbons or other potential contaminants (e.g. heavy metals) to Cook Inlet.
ShoreZone Mapping
While researching options for providing coastal habitat information, a technique named “ShoreZone Mapping” came out as tool that had been successfully applied to the entire coast of Washington State and British Columbia. It made sense to use a method that had been tested and applied to areas that had many similarities to the south central coast in terms of species, types of assemblages, remoteness of coastlines (especially in much of B.C.). ShoreZone provides “broad brush” information; information about physical and biological nearshore environment across large geographic areas for relatively low cost; this method provides a “big picture” approach that will provide information that can be summarized at regional levels and help us to define areas at which we need more detailed habitat mapping for other purposes. We recognized the wide range of applications of the data, beyond obtaining shoreline habitat information useful for understanding potential impacts by oil industry operations.
Cook Inlet RCAC conducted a pilot ShoreZone mapping program in Cook Inlet in 2001 and has actively sought additional funding sources and partners to expand this program outside of Cook Inlet. We have successfully described the idea of coordinated coastal mapping to other local, state, and federal agencies and are actively partnering to continue this program.
Although we have successfully expanded our small pilot program into a larger plan, we see that there is still significant work that needs to be done in the region. That work includes:
- Improving ShoreZone Mapping methods for areas that are unique in Alaska. For example, many miles of Cook Inlet shorelines have intertidal zones that are several miles wide. ShoreZone methods have had difficulty accurately mapping these types of habitat and efforts need to be made towards improving our ability to map wetlands and wide coastlines. We are working with the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve to develop plans for mapping these areas that would be mapped as “polygons,” instead of as “lines” as most of the coastline of Alaska has been mapped.
- Expanding the mapping database for wetland and saltmarsh areas. In doing so, we would further integrate the Coastal Mapping database with the environmental monitoring database developed for our intertidal monitoring program. This would require features in the Coastal Mapping database where “point” data can be inserted and chemistry data could be queried as part of the mapping database.
|
|
Macrocystis Kelp Mapping
 Several years ago during our ShoreZone helicopter surveys in the Kodiak Island area, scientists discovered a bed of the canopy kelp Macrocystis spp. on Afognak Island outside of Foul Bay. We verified its presence in 2005 by collecting voucher samples while conducting intertidal beach surveys in the area. Last August, a Cook Inlet RCAC research team conducted a short exploration expedition to the area and included scientific divers, GIS mappers, and an algal taxonomist. During the week-long survey onboard the R/V Norseman, the team mapped the kelp beds; obtained species-level information for fish, invertebrates and seaweeds associated with the kelp beds; and collected tissue samples of the kelp for future DNA analyses.
Cook Inlet RCAC is collecting historical aerial photographs and interviewing local fishermen who have fished in the western Afognak Island area to determine whether this plant has recently expanded its range in the area or if it had just missed being detected until our regionwide coastal mapping efforts. Although the western geographic range of this plant historically included Kodiak, there were no documented reports of actual beds of Macrocystis – only reports and collections of individual plants.
Also of interest to Cook Inlet RCAC, is that the kelp is a unique habitat in an area that is downstream of the major water currents from Cook Inlet. In the Gulf of Alaska, only two other canopy kelps provide the floating kelp habitat that some fish and marine mammal species prefer. These are bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) and dragon kelp (Alaria fistulosa) both of which provide habitat for hiding and feeding. In contrast to bull and dragon kelp which are annuals that can grow from the bottom to the surface in one year, Macrocystis is a perennial, which remains year-round. Macrocystis can grow in a very dense band along the shoreline, which could have impacts for shoreline access or oil spill response. In our study area, it created an almost impenetrable barrier to shoreline access and is extremely dense from the low intertidal to about 10 meters depth. By studying this kelp now, we will be able to tell if it expands along the coast and be better able to evaluate how that might affect nearshore habitat. |
Salt Marsh Mapping
 Many areas of Cook Inlet are surrounded by wide salt marshes that can extend miles inland. Some of these areas have a significant risk of being impacted in the event that an upper Cook Inlet oil spill reaches the shoreline during higher tides. Salt marshes are particularly sensitive to spilled oil since the marsh plant roots and sediments retain the oil. They are not cleansed by natural tidal action as some shore types are and clean-up options are limited by logistics and the fact that response actions can cause more damage than does leaving the oil in place. The existing Cook Inlet coastal habitat databases lack detailed information about the extent of salt marshes and the plant species associated with different areas within the marshes. These habitats are best mapped as polygon units which can show total area of a habitat. This complements Scientist walking transect to collect Salt Marsh plant data in Upper Cook Inlet. Photo by Steve Baird/Conrad Field ShoreZone data which provides good regional summaries of salt marsh locations represented as lines or points along the shore.
In 2006, Cook Inlet RCAC initiated a project to map saltmarshes in upper Cook Inlet by contracting with scientists Conrad Field and Steve Baird from the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve. The biologists spent about a week on the ground in each of Trading, Redoubt, and Chickaloon bays, moving on foot to map specific salt marsh plant associations. They also used a helicopter to obtain GPS data to more accurately map the data and to access parts of the marshes that were difficult to reach on foot. The final GIS maps of these sensitive salt marsh areas will provide data about a habitat for which we currently have little baseline information. |
|
ShoreZone Beach Survey – Forage Fish Surveys |
 |
 |
 |
|
Forage Fish Survey
Cook Inlet RCAC worked with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in several areas of the Gulf of Alaska to conduct ShoreZone beach surveys in intertidal areas where NMFS scientists were conducting fish capture surveys  just offshore. The fish capture surveys were to assess forage fish use of nearshore habitats by comparing fish use of kelp, eelgrass, sand, and rock wall habitats. Data and digital imagery collected during earlier ShoreZone surveys were used to pre-identify sampling locations.
The field studies were led by Mandy Lindeberg and Scott Johnson of NMFS. Ms. Lindeberg’s study consisted of recording information about the intertidal areas, including species-level assessments of invertebrates and algae as well as measuring specific beach attributes such as sediment type and beach profiles. Mr. Johnson’s team deployed either a beach seine or a nearshore purse seine in the shallow subtidal areas just offshore of each intertidal sampling location. These data will be provided as a data layer within the larger ShoreZone web-served data. |
|
ShoreZone Beach Survey - Aniakchak National Park |
|
|
|
Rocky Reef Survey
Also in July, Cook Inlet RCAC led a small team of scientists on a short survey of rocky reef habitats along the Aniakchak National Park coastline, which is on the Alaska Peninsula “downstream” of Cook Inlet based on prevailing ocean currents. We know that oil spilled in Cook Inlet could potentially impact areas along the Peninsula and this has been illustrated by the pathways of Cook Inlet RCAC’s drifter buoys that were released during a different study tracking surface ocean currents near Cook Inlet. The Aniakchak beach surveys were conducted through a partnership with the National Park Service to collect species diversity measurements in intertidal areas and to ground-truth ShoreZone biophysical data collected in 2003. The project is an expansion of the larger ShoreZone mapping efforts to provide a contiguous, continuous dataset for biophysical habitats in the intertidal and shallow subtidal areas of the Gulf of Alaska (http://www.coastalaska.net/).
Eight sites were intensively sampled to provide invertebrate and algal species lists for the park. The biophysical maps produced from the 2003 aerial surveys were assessed at over 50 sites – verifying the alongshore and across-shore geomorphology and major biota. |
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 2 |
