Welcome to the April 2016 issue of the Natural Hazards Observer, dedicated to climate change and indigenous people in the United States.

Indigenous communities in our country—from Native Americans to Louisiana and Pacific Islanders in Hawaii to Alaska Natives in the Arctic Circle—face a myriad climate change impacts that threaten to undermine their livelihoods, identity, and culture. Key impacts include drought and water availability, thinning arctic sea ice, thawing permafrost, erosion, and floods. In turn, these impacts can lead to food insecurity and, in some cases such as Newtok Alaska and Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, it even leads to the need to relocate.