Which streams may become too hot for salmon or whitefish? Can we expect salmon to move north into streams where whitefish or sheefish now dominate? Will there be competition between the species? Which streams will remain colder and perhaps become refugia for the fish species there today? These are some of the questions that people are asking about climate change effects on fisheries. With the information available today in Alaska, it is very difficult to provide more than basic responses to these questions at a landscape scale. For this reason the Western Alaska and Northwest Boreal Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs) and the Alaska Climate Science Center teamed together with the Wildlife Management Institute to host a Stream and Lake Temperature Monitoring Workshop in November 2012.

The workshop brought together 28 hydrologists, researchers, fisheries biologists, local experts and managers to discuss the steps necessary to utilize existing and future water temperature data to allow for the development of regional-scale predictive models of changes in water temperature. The ability to conduct these models is a critical step in understanding how changes in temperature may affect fisheries habitat over the next century. Experts involved in the Arctic LCC's hydrology work group and members of the Interagency Hydrology Committee for Alaska were involved in the workshop to ensure strong "cross pollination" of ideas and avoidance of duplicative efforts.

As a precursor to the workshop, participants were asked to identify where they are currently collecting water temperature data in Alaska. These sites and additional sites added during the workshop were mapped to identify where there were gaps in information and opportunities for additional study. As a result of the workshop, initial steps were identified that would ultimately lead to sufficient information so that scenario models could be developed to provide some answers to the questions above.

The top recommendations include:

1. Clearly articulate the goals and objectives of the proposed regional network for monitoring stream and lake water temperature.
2. Conduct a more comprehensive inventory of project metadata and attributes (e.g. who, what, where, when) for current and past stream and lake temperature monitoring efforts.
3. Identify a network of 'reference sites', to be maintained in perpetuity (20 year minimum), that will serve as the network's core observational skeleton/framework to which observations from shorter duration sites can be linked and 'anchored'.
4. Demonstrate the power and value of predictive scenarios based on water temperature data for pilot regions in Alaska.
5. Develop minimum data collection standards that a project must meet for its water temperature observations to be usable in a regional network analysis.
6. Define the characteristics (architecture) for storing and distributing water temperature data for Alaska.

The Western Alaska LCC and the Alaska Climate Science Center have committed a portion of their fiscal year 2013 project funding to implement these workshop recommendations and will initiate efforts on recommendations 1 and 2 this year. A complete workshop report will be available in the spring of 2013. (cs)