Interior Alaska is a diverse socioeconomic region with remote subsistence-based communities, resource extraction activities, military bases, and western urban regions. In remote areas, rivers are commonly used as transportation pathways, but the region also contains five of the 13 highways in Alaska. Connection to the state highway system dramatically alters community dynamics, including but not limited to prices of fuel, employment, and access to hunting and fishing resources.

Culverts

Culverts that are sized or installed inappropriately can have several detrimental impacts to stream physical and chemical habitat, in addition to preventing fish passage. Water quality impairments from road crossings include increased sedimentation and delivery of toxic compounds from the road surface. Physical habitat impairments are numerous and include stream channelization; scouring or erosion downstream of perched culverts; ponding and sedimentation upstream; decreased transport of water, sediments, and wood downstream; and partial to complete blockage, which may lead to failure during flood event. Finally, roads are also an important pathway transporting invasive species to aquatic habitats. ADFG inventoried 374 culverts for juvenile fish passage. Culvert conditions that prevent passage to fish include perched outlets, steep gradients, or constricted culverts. These same failures lead to physical habitat impacts both upstream and downstream. Culverts were rated red when conditions were inadequate for fish passage, gray when conditions were unlikely to allow for fish passage, green when conditions allowed for fish passage, and black when more information was needed.

Boat Launches

This data contains the boat access sites for interior Alaska located on flowing water bodies. This dataset was created for the analysis of waterweed (Elodea spp.) invasion vulnerability. Boat launches were hand-digitized from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Bureau of Land Management website. Links to the source maps are stored in the attribute table.

Mines, Material Sale Sites, and Open Contaminated Sites

Material Sales Sites

This dataset was originally developed by Alaska Department of Natural Resources to track material sales sites (gravel pits).

Current Mines

This dataset contains current active mines based on the Alaska Resource Data File (ARDF) and randomized mines representing mine density from Alaska Department of Natural Resources in interior Alaska.

Historic Mines

This dataset contains historic (inactive and closed) mines with past production based on the Alaska Resource Data File (ARDF).

Open Contaminated Sites

The Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) open contaminated sites layer shows past and present contaminated sites that still require clean-up. Contaminated sites are located within a variety of land management jurisdictions. There are 419 open contaminated sites in the dataset geography. Some contaminated sites are close to multiple aquatic habitats: 199 sites have the potential to affect 284 aquatic habitats. The majority of open contaminated sites are near small streams (130).

Pipelines and Oil and Gas Permits and Wells

Pipelines

This data depicts pipeline infrastructure locations in Alaska as digitized primarily from 1:24,000, 1:63,360, and 1:250,000 USGS quadrangles. The source document that represented the newest information and best geographic location was used to capture the data. All infrastructure from the primary source document was digitized and then supplemented with the information from other source documents for additional or updated infrastructure or attributes.

Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

This data depicts the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil pipeline infrastructure which runs from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez.

Near-term Future Pipelines

This data depicts predicted pipelines for the future.

Oil and Gas Wells

This dataset depicts oil and gas wells, according to information retrieved from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources - Division of Oil and Gas in 2008. Due to limitations of the precision with which the locations of the wells is recorded within the table retrieved from the Department of Oil and Gas, the locations depicted in this dataset should be treated as approximate.

Oil and Gas Permits

Permit or Lease - Mineral Estate includes a variety of permits or leases including Oil and Gas Lease, Shallow Gas Lease, Exploration License, Geothermal Permit or Lease, Mining Lease, Offshore Prospecting Permit or Lease, Coal Prospecting Permit or Lease. This dataset characterizes the geographic representation of land parcels within the State of Alaska contained by the Mineral Estate-Mineral Permit or Lease category.

Community Locations and Footprints and Formerly Used Defense Sites

Formerly Used Defense Sites

The Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) inventory is available by sites per state. The data captures inventory as of September 30, 2013. DOD is responsible for the environmental restoration (cleanup) of properties that were formerly owned by, leased to or otherwise possessed by the United States and under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Defense prior to October 1986. Such properties are known as Formerly Used Defense Sites or FUDS. The U.S. Army is DOD’s lead agent for the FUDS Program. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers executes the FUDS Program on behalf of the U.S. Army and DOD. The U.S. Army and DOD are dedicated to protecting human health and the environment by investigating and, if required, cleaning up potential contamination or munitions that may remain on these properties from past DOD activities.

Fairbanks and Community Footprints

The community footprints were produced by digitally tracing built areas from satellite imagery. This was done to represent the actual community footprints more accurately than would have been possible from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files. A majority of the communities are small and their footprints are concentrated in small areas with some activities scattered around each community's central location. Population in each community is often low and activity beyond identified footprint boundaries is limited to subsistence-use and inter-community trails.

Fairbanks and Community Locations

This point file was derived from the community footprints dataset. The points were manually edited and moved from their default position to a location that corresponded with the actual community location based on satellite imagery. The footprint feature class was produced by digitally tracing the built areas from satellite imagery. This was done to represent the actual footprints more accurately than would have been possible from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) files. Generation of a point file from a polygon file is done by locating the point at the center of gravity of the polygon. Given the large polygons in the community TIGER file, centers of gravity are often well outside the actual community footprints. As a result, Census TIGER files were not used in identifying community footprints.

Timber Sales: Prior to 1992, 1993-2009, and 2010-2014

In the 1980s, most timber harvest occurred only on the road system and the same pattern currently continues. Harvest in interior Alaska is limited by a 100–120 year rotation length cycle and access. The main limiting factors for harvest are access, costs associated with extracting and shipping timber, and small diameter of the trees. Even though very little timber production actually occurs, climate change is threatening the future of upland white and black spruce and lowland black spruce in Interior Alaska and forest fire activity has been increasing, both of which could hinder future timber production. One limitation with harvesting timber is the cost to build roads, which can be more than the actual harvestable surplus.

Transportation

Alternative Transportation: Current, Near-term Future, and Long-term Future

Transportation networks are comprised of land (e.g. highways, roads, secondary roads, forestry roads, and trails), air (e.g. airports and airstrips), and water (e.g. rivers). Communities in the FNSB and a few outlying communities are connected by roads, but many communities in the area are only accessible by airplane, boat, or snowmachine in winter. Included in trails were those designated under the Revised Statute (RS) 2477 of the Mining Act of 1866 that granted public right-of-way across unreserved Federal land to guarantee access as land transferred to state or private ownership. Rights-of-way were created and granted under RS 2477 until its repeal in 1976. However, trails that existed in 1976 continue to be valid rights-of-way for public use and given the large area it is not feasible to examine this with satellite imagery. Along the Dalton Highway, there are a number of trails and access routes that were provided by the BLM, including: mining compliance trails, Dalton pipeline gravel access roads, and Dalton Highway ground transportation linear feature mining roads and trails. Alternative transportation contains trails, railroads, and rivers used for transportation.

Railroads: Current and Proposed Extension

The availability of transportation routes is a major factor that influences the social and economic atmosphere of communities in the CYR study area. The influences of transportation routes can be both negative and positive, but nonetheless changes occur when a community becomes connected to a larger transportation network. The Alaska Railroad is the primary rail network throughout Alaska and the region. The Northern Rail Extension project will extend the current railroad system south of Fairbanks to Delta Junction. There are four phases of this project, with Phase 1 completed. Phase 2 includes expansion of the railroad from Moose Creek near North Pole to across the newly built Tanana River Bridge by Salcha. The completion of phases 3 and 4 is dependent on funding and therefore uncertain. During these phases the railroad will be extended to Delta Junction and temporary bridges across sloughs were removed.

Roads and Trails

Highways, Secondary Roads and Proposed Forestry Roads

Highways digitized by Alaska Department of Natural Resources from USGS topographic maps and corrected by Alaska Center for Conservation Science by comparison to satellite imagery. Secondary roads were digitized by Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Fairbanks North Star Borough, and other sources and corrected by Alaska Center for Conservation Science by comparison to satellite imagery. Datasets were developed for Northwest Boreal LCC.

Primary and Secondary Trails

RS 2477 stands for Revised Statute 2477 from the Mining Act of 1866, which states: "The right-of-way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted." The act granted a public right-of-way across unreserved federal land to guarantee access as land transferred to state or private ownership. Rights-of-way were created and granted under RS 2477 until its repeal in 1976. In Alaska, federal land was "reserved for public uses" in December 1968, with passage of PLO 4582, also known as the "land freeze." This date ends the window of RS 2477 qualification in Alaska.

Proposed Roads to Resources

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT) has funded studies of preferred routes for proposed roads. According to the ADOT-funded studies, the community of Galena would potentially be influenced by the road to Nome. Future road development has the potential to greatly alter the landscape and provide access to consumptive and non-consumptive users. The effects of proposed roads must be evaluated in case they become implemented in the near-term or long-term future. Of the four routes suggested to the Ambler mining district, the southern route has been deemed the most likely because it uses existing highways, minimizes crossing federal lands, which require additional scrutiny, facilitates access to rural communities, and provides the most access to mineral resources along the Yukon River. Of all proposed roads, the road to Umiat is the shortest (29 km), followed by the preferred option for the road to Nome (459 km). The longest proposed road would provide access to the Ambler mining district from the Dalton Highway (1,325 km).

Long-term Future Road to Tanana

Possible route for a future road to the community of Tanana.

Utility Lines

Utility lines were merged from various sources to provide the best comprehensive coverage. This dataset depicts the spatial extent of electrical powerlines in the interior area. Electrical lines, telephone lines, and pipelines were provided by Alaska Department of Natural Resources. The original statewide data was digitized from 1:63,360 and 1:250,000 USGS topographic maps. The source document that represented the newest information and best geographic location was used to capture the data. All infrastructure from the primary source document was digitized and then supplemented with the information from other source documents for additional or updated infrastructure or attributes.