Salmon Habitat Mapping in the Central Kenai Peninsula 2021-2024 [DRAFT]
Executive Summary
It is estimated that less than half of Alaska’s freshwater salmon habitat is officially documented by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and until these streams and lakes are inventoried they will not be afforded certain protections under Alaska state law.
Two nonprofits in the central Kenai Peninsula region, Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kenai Peninsula Chapter of Trout Unlimited, are collaborating to address this data gap by working with volunteers to document local salmon habitat. From 2021 - 2024, we identified 22.4 miles of stream and 173 lake acres of previously undocumented anadromous habitat near the roadways of the Kenai Peninsula.
Given that so much undocumented salmon habitat was so close at hand prior to this project, our results highlight the need to continue this work and explore new methods of mapping and modeling that can address the scale of the challenge. Going forward in summer 2025, we are working with geospatial specialists to apply predictive habitat occupancy models that will help to target and prioritize our fieldwork. If these models prove successful, we anticipate that in the future they may have broad application throughout Alaska, for researchers as well as within regulatory and permitting regimes.
Access the online interactive map of results at http://bit.ly/kwf_awc.
Our work is funded from the following sources:
Trout Unlimited Embrace-a-Stream grant program (awards in 2019 and 2023)
Kenai Community Foundation grant program (award in 2019)
Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund project #54014, “Expanding and Corroborating the Known Extent of Anadromous Waters Throughout the Kenai Peninsula” (Award 2021 - 2023)
Notes on Previous Versions of this Report
This document serves as the final report for work conducted from 2021 - 2023 to expand and corroborate the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Anadromous Waters Catalog in the central Kenai Peninsula area of Alaska, USA.
This document combines, replaces, and updates the following two previous reports, which can be disregarded as earlier versions: