Alaska is facing a crisis that most Americans never saw coming. Each year, entire communities watch their homeland gradually disappear into the sea due to erosion. Some areas are losing at least 3 feet to as much as 61 feet of coastline in a single year because of it. This isn’t some distant environmental abstract. We’re talking about homes, schools, and entire villages that must relocate or face complete destruction.
Erosion in Alaska is significant because of the fact that the state contains a huge portion (35%) of the country’s coastline and a majority (83%) of its population is living on the coast. One study focused on Alaska’s 60,000+ square kilometer Arctic Coastal Plain and how compound climate impacts accelerate coastal change.
“The findings from this study reveal an unprecedented transformation of Alaska’s Arctic coastlines,” Benjamin Jones, research associate professor at the Institute of Northern Engineering, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “By 2100, the combined effects of coastal erosion, sea level rise, and permafrost thaw subsidence will likely push the North Slope shoreline inland to a location it hasn’t reached since the last interglacial period over 100,000 years ago. ”
The scale of Alaska’s erosion problem demands understanding of its unique geographical position. Unlike erosion in temperate climates, Alaska’s situation involves a unique mix of particularly aggressive factors. In addition, the impacts of erosion go far beyond simple land loss. This phenomenon creates cascading economic and social disruptions that ripple through entire regions.
The Science Behind Alaska’s Disappearing Land
Alaska’s erosion operates through multiple mechanisms working together. That is, the state’s 6,640 miles of coastline face constant assault from several directions simultaneously.
Wave Action
The most obvious culprit of erosion in Alaska is wave action. Alaska’s waves carry unusual destructive power. The state’s wave systems hit its shores with tremendous energy, especially during storm seasons.
In particular, the open Arctic Ocean where there is no ice can result in larger surface waves. Such large waves can have many adverse consequences, including excessive erosion due to currents and water circulation along the shallow areas.
Climate Change
Global warming brought about by climate change is causing an increase in temperature in the Last Frontier. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that most of the state has warmed three degrees (F), on average, and six degrees during winter.
A recent USA Today report stated that Alaska’s rising temperatures is twice or thrice than the global average. As a result, the National Weather Service has launched its first heat advisories in Fairbanks and Juneau. More importantly, this warming has also resulted in thawing of permafrost (more on this below) and sea ice loss.
Sea ice serves as a natural barrier that protects Alaska’s northern coastlines from waves, winds, and currents. According to the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, “Current observations and future projections show that as sea ice melts earlier and forms later in the year, Arctic coasts will be more vulnerable to storm surge and wave energy.”
Permafrost Erosion
Permafrost is another factor that plays a critical role in Alaska’s disappearing land. The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys (AK DGGS) defines permafrost as “ground with a temperature that remains at or below freezing (32° F or 0° C) for two or more consecutive years.” In cold climate regions like Alaska, permafrost ensures structures and infrastructures have a stable foundation.
In other words, permafrost acts like natural cement holding soil together. However, when frozen ground thaws, it becomes incredibly vulnerable to erosion. When it melts, the binding effect disappears, and waves, rain, or spring melt can carve away massive chunks of land.
“Along ice-rich permafrost coastlines, the land surface is falling faster than the sea levels are rising,” Pier Paul Overduin, senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, shared. “Over the coming decades, permafrost thaw subsidence will move the coastline farther inland than coastal erosion or sea level rise alone will move it, and this subsidence will dominate Arctic coastal change over the long term.”
While permafrost thaw subsidence is a major driver of coastal land loss in Arctic regions, permafrost land collapse known as usteq, a Yupi’k work which means “surface caves in,” is even worse. For instance, Cev’aq, a Cup’ik village located on the Ninglikfak River of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, has lost more than 7 feet of ground in some places due to an usteq in the summer of 2024. This land loss has put at risk a culturally important structure called maqivik, or steam house.
Note that permafrost is under about 85% of Alaska. Nearly 170,000 people, including 229 federally recognized Tribes, reside across 192 communities on its surface, according to The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Permafrost is thickest and most extensive north of the Brooks Range in the Arctic north and extends as much as 2,000 feet below the surface in the Arctic Coastal Plain. Permafrost becomes thinner and discontinuous toward the south, with Southeast Alaska having none except for patches in high elevation.
How Erosion Impacts Communities in Alaska
Real people live with erosion’s consequences daily, and their experiences reveal the true scope of this challenge. Village leaders throughout coastal Alaska report similar patterns: gradual land loss that suddenly accelerates, forcing impossible decisions about relocation.
Consider the logistics alone. When a community decides to relocate due to erosion, they must move everything—homes, schools, infrastructure, and often graves of ancestors.
In addition, the psychological impact often gets overlooked in technical discussions, but this is also important. Forced relocation due to erosion creates trauma that affects entire communities for generations. These aren’t just houses being lost; they’re ancestral lands with deep cultural significance for indigenous people.
“There’s just multiple issues everywhere,” Dillingham city planner Patty Buholm told Grist. As of March 2023, the Alaskan city was facing an erosion rate of around 16 feet per year in front of its sewage lagoon. A mass grave, which held victims of tuberculosis and the 1918 flu pandemic, was also slowly falling out of a bluff and onto the beach below it.
Indigenous communities face particular challenges because their traditional knowledge systems are tied to specific landscapes. When those landscapes disappear, the knowledge systems built around them become difficult to maintain.
“There’s a lot of history that’s being washed away,” Eben Hopson, an Iñupiaq filmmaker and photographer, told Grist. Hopson lives in the village of Utqiaġvik, where waves are swallowing up evidence of life in long-uninhabited coastal settlements.
