Thousands of miles of shoreline and a zillion river miles: The challenges of the Alaska fish habitat assessment

The goal of the NFHAP Coastal Assessment is to develop a National scale coastal spatial framework and database of existing indicators of habitat quality to support completion of the NFHAP Assessment in 2010.  A primary data source for this effort is the Coastal Assessment Framework (CAF) developed by the NOAA in the 1990s to characterize watersheds and coastal areas in the United States. Unfortunately, the CAF does not include Alaska, Hawaii or the Pacific Islands making it necessary to acquire coastal spatial data and indicator data from a variety of ad hoc sources. With 10,686 km of coastline adjoining the Arctic and Pacific Oceans and the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, developing a spatial framework for Alaska has proved very challenging.  This paper will discuss the challenges and accomplishments of the Alaska Coastal Assessment project as well as highlighting some of the broader benefits of developing a large, comprehensive spatial data set that can be used in a variety of coastal analyses and planning activities.