Current Issue

Partners in Research

This issue of Alaska Park Science focuses specifically on the National Park Service (NPS)-U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) science partnership. Alaska’s national parks protect large, ecologically intact landscapes that are a valuable setting for scientists to understand ecosystem function and change. These “natural laboratories” are ideal settings for researchers from universities and other federal agencies. Together, we build a body of science that informs a variety of disciplines as well as park management.

In this issue, we highlight research on water in its many forms—frozen water (glaciers), moving water (streams and rivers), still water (lakes), and salt water (intertidal). We explore water as a source of transportation (rivers, lakes, and gulfs), concern (oil spills, permafrost thaw, and erosion), and livelihoods (fish, wildlife, and recreation)—even as a means for conducting science, such as how a river corridor serves as a bear survey transect.

Our research in parks spans the state, from Noatak National Preserve in Northwest Alaska, to Sitka National Historical Park in Southeast, to Katmai National Park and Preserve in Southwest. The researchers themselves are as varied as the places and the studies, led by USGS and NPS scientists in collaboration with science centers, universities, and in remote field stations, and at all career stages from seasoned experts to students and technicians.

The USGS is closely associated with the NPS, both housed within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). Despite its rocky epithet, the USGS employs researchers across the spectrum of science, from biologists and ecologists, to astronomers and astrophysicists, to hydrologists, geologists, and geographers. The mission of USGS is to provide objective and impartial scientific research that benefits resource managers and the public more broadly. Distinct from many other DOI bureaus, USGS does not have a land and resource management base, but contributes strong scientific expertise and partnership.

It is our hope that the articles in this issue serve to underscore the close and abiding ties between USGS and NPS in providing scientific insight that helps park staff to manage and protect Alaska’s national parks, for continued and future use by Alaskans and, indeed, all of America.

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