8 minute read
Water rising: Flood mapping in the Native Village of Kuigilnguq
Jessica Howard, Arctic Communications Specialist
Greg Fiske, Senior Geospatial Analyst, Senior Research Associate
Gary Evon Alaska Native Village of Kuigilnguq, former Permafrost Pathways Tribal Liaison
Village of no river
The Alaska Native Village of Kuigilnguq (Kwigillingok; pronounced kwee-gill-in-gawk), a word that means “no river” in Yugtun, the traditional Yup’ik language, is a federally recognized Tribe in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta near the southwest coast of the Bering Sea. In Kuigilnguq, most of the approximately 400 residents identify as Alaska Native people of the Central Yup’ik culture, and the village Tribal Council operates as the main governing and decision-making body of the community.
As the story goes, when Kuigilnguq’s Yup’ik ancestors settled, there was no river near the village. But after a girl lost her necklace in a lake one day, her father drained the lake looking for it, creating what is now known as the Kuigilnguq River. Yup’ik creation stories are a cultural practice of intergenerational oral storytelling that reveal their deep connection to the land, plants, and animals.
But due to the ongoing impacts of colonialism and climate change, a different kind of story about environmental change is unfolding in Kuigilnguq.
As the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the world, rising temperatures are transforming the northern environment and creating a human rights crisis in Alaska with 144 Alaska Native communities—43% of all communities across the state—imminently threatened by permafrost thaw, flooding, and/or erosion. Kuigilnguq is a coastal village that sits at a low elevation where the landscape is increasingly subjected to the impacts of climate change and, like many remote communities in Alaska, they are now being forced to make difficult adaptation decisions in order to protect themselves and their traditional ways of life from the cascading effects of environmental hazards caused by Arctic warming.
The compounding impacts of permafrost thaw
Covering 15% of the northern hemisphere, permafrost is perennially frozen ground that underlies the Arctic tundra and large swaths of boreal forest. But rapid pan-Arctic warming is causing permafrost to thaw, destabilizing the ground, and triggering land subsidence, and contributing to flooding and erosion. Permafrost thaw can also cause lake drainage and exacerbate saltwater inundation that encroaches on freshwater sources. Slow-onset processes like coastal and riverine erosion, coastal sea ice decline, and extreme weather events like storms, floods, and wildfires can accelerate permafrost thaw and contribute to usteq—the Yup’ik word for catastrophic ground collapse.
Permafrost thaw, flooding, and erosion also damage the built environment, destroying roads and essential infrastructure like homes, schools, and public utilities that ensure community access to housing, education, medical facilities, electricity, transportation, and clean water. These dangerous phenomena also have a significant impact on local vegetation like berries and other tundra plants as well as the migration patterns of Arctic species like salmon and moose, on which the people of Kuigilnguq depend to maintain their traditional subsistence practices and cultural lifeways.
The Yup’ik People of Kuigilnguq have been the traditional stewards of the land and water since time immemorial and maintain strong cultural connections to and intimate knowledge of their ancestral homelands. But due to the acceleration of climate impacts, Kuigilnguq is making difficult adaptation decisions involving managed retreat or community relocation to ensure a safer future and protect the health, wellbeing, and cultural heritage of their village.
Community-led flood mapping and the importance of co-production
While Arctic communities and scientists have been observing permafrost thaw for decades, climate adaptation governance frameworks currently don’t exist, and federal disaster policies and responses still do not account for permafrost thaw. However, several government agencies are actively working on strategies to change that by streamlining interagency coordination, improving opportunities for federal aid, providing better agency support for communities trying to access resources, and through the establishment of the Voluntary Community-Driven Relocation Subcommittee under the White House National Climate Task Force.
To bridge these gaps and adequately address community needs, Permafrost Pathways is advocating for more federal support for solutions that are developed with and led by Alaska Native villages already leading the efforts to protect and prepare their communities against the impacts of climate change. The project is working closely with Kuigilnguq and other community partners as well as state and federal government agencies to co-create Indigenous-led adaptation and relocation frameworks that respect Tribal sovereignty and the right to self-determination. Permafrost Pathways adaptation work includes conducting site relocation assessments, sustaining community-led environmental monitoring, and co-producing maps of landscape change that will inform relocation decision-making and further advance community-led adaptation strategies.
In April 2023, Woodwell Climate’s Senior Scientist Dr. Sue Natali, who leads the Permafrost Pathways project, and Senior Geospatial Analyst Greg Fiske joined Ben Baldwin and Gary Evon, a former Permafrost Pathways Tribal Liaison, in Kuigilnguq to map the landscape changes happening in the community. Evon shared a recently completed community hazard assessment, in which he pointed out a map that underrepresented the severity of flooding in Kuigilnguq.
To better capture the extent of tidal flooding in the community, Evon and Fiske began planning a new map that combined Evon’s historical knowledge of the land with community observations and Fiske’s geospatial expertise. Using high-resolution satellite images, Evon drew circles around unflooded “islands”—small areas in the community that remained dry during the high tide. He then guided the team to those exact locations, where they mapped the unflooded areas using a GPS. Fiske and Evon used this information to co-produce a revised flood map that was strikingly different from the original and provided a more accurate visualization of the extreme tidal inundation that the community has been dealing with on a regular basis.
Accurate representations of environmental hazards in maps and other geospatial tools are important for community disaster planning and response—preparation that is especially critical in a region where many communities aren’t connected to a road system and are only accessible by plane or barge. Community Hazard Mitigation Plans (HMPs) are designed to identify natural threats and risks to reduce vulnerability and limit harm from environmental disasters. State and federal agencies rely on HMPs and other assessment reports to determine community climate risks and government response. These reports are also often prerequisites for accessing federal and state funding needed for climate adaptation.
Evon and Fiske’s co-produced flood map illustrates the importance of equitable research processes that bring together different methodologies for the coproduction of knowledge. Co-production, which often unites Western science with Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge, is essential for providing decision-makers with the best available science to ensure that government programs can appropriately meet adaptation needs. Better information helps avoid the risk of underestimating the severity of ongoing environmental hazards, and thus under-serving communities on the frontlines of climate change.
Permafrost Pathways is coordinating with project partners to put the co-produced flood map in front of relevant government agencies to facilitate a relocation process for Kuigilnguq on a timeline that will match the urgency of their needs and ultimately keep the community safe. Combining Woodwell Climate’s technical expertise with the Traditional Knowledge of our Alaska Native community partners, we can co-produce environmental assessments and adaptation strategies that are accurate, equitable, and foster long-term climate resilience.
Indigenizing the map, reclaiming the land, protecting the future
Maps are an important medium for communication and information-sharing. They influence how we relate to our surroundings—shaping our perception of the world around us and how we make sense of it. Maps can help us tell powerful, immersive stories about the past, present, and future. For Indigenous Peoples, mapping is one way they are reclaiming their ancestral homelands and combating Indigenous erasure that happens when their communities, histories, knowledge, and languages are excluded from maps and major geospatial tools. Mapping is crucial to supporting Indigenous rights, respecting Indigenous sovereignty, sharing Indigenous stories, and advocating for more Indigenous land stewardship.
“Maps are a powerful tool to convey navigation and being able to see your place on the earth. Historically, Indigenous peoples have been excluded from the map; we’re changing that,” says Steve DeRoy, Founder of the Indigenous Mapping Collective.
Indigenous-led coalitions like the Indigenous Mapping Collective are building capacity amongst Indigenous Peoples across the world by providing access to GIS software and training. The collective is growing an international network of Indigenous mappers working together to Indigenize maps through the decolonization of place and space.
To support such efforts, Permafrost Pathways is working with several Alaska Native community partners in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to put Indigenous place names in Yup’ik and Chupik back on the map to re-Indigenize the mapping of their homelands and preserve their traditional languages and cultural history for future generations.
header photo: Summer tidal flooding in Kuigilnguq, Alaska. / photo by Gary Evon
