Sustainability of Arctic Communities: Interactions between Global Changes, Public Policies, and Ecological Processess
Abstract from original project proposal, Award NSF OPP-9521459
This study will address policy questions about the ability of Arctic human communities to sustain themselves in the face of global climate change and development. For the past 25 years, communities in Alaska’s North Slope Borough have sustained themselves through a combination of wage employment derived from petroleum revenues; harvests of caribou, marine mammals and other resources; and local control exercised through regional government and Native-owned corporations.
The principal climate changes considered in this study are rising temperatures, increased precipitation, and increased frequency of extreme events. Global climate changes are expected to affect the seasonal availability and quality of forage for caribou, thereby affecting a primary source of food for Natives in the region. Climate changes may also affect construction, operation, and transportation costs, thereby affecting regional development.
The policy audience for this proposal includes state and national entities, but the primary focus is on the North Slope Borough, a regional government established by the Inupiat Eskimo in 1972. Policymakers would like to understand the possible implications of global change on development and subsistence, since those activities so directly affect the lives of the Inupiat. The borough has a long record of supporting science in the Arctic and will contribute data to the study. National policymakers also have an interest in looking at such issues.
Because high latitudes are likely to experience the effects of global change early and severely, studies of social impacts and response can generate useful knowledge of phenomena likely to occur later elsewhere. In addition, the rich research base of the region offers an opportunity to focus on the linkages between scientific disciplines at a landscape scale over a period of decades. Both federal and state wildlife management agencies have an interest in understanding the implications of global change on fluctuations in wildlife populations.
An interdisciplinary group will focus on relationships between global changes in climate and development and changes in vegetation, caribou populations and movements, human use of caribou, wage employment, and perceived local control. Major project tasks include (a) development of a vegetation model that predicts forage for caribou and sensitivity to development as a function of climate, caribou, and past development; (b) development of a caribou model that responds to climate, vegetation, development, and human harvest; (c) econometric and institutional analysis of petroleum investment as affected by environmental costs and public policies; (d) subsistence hunting/wage employment model as affected by caribou densities and locations and wage opportunities; (e) comparative analysis of policy vehicles for responding to forces for change; and (f) development of a synthesis framework for relating policies to future outcomes in the context of global climate change and development.
The analysis region is northern Alaska and northwestern Canada. It embraces the ranges of the Western Arctic, Teshekpuk, Central Arctic, and Porcupine Caribou herds and the Inupiat and Gwich’in communities located there. Communities within the study region but outside the borough depend on the same caribou resources but do not enjoy the petroleum revenues or the same degree of local control as borough communities do. These variations in wage employment, subsistence, and local control measures of sustainability strengthen the implications of the model.
The study will not attempt to link the detailed subsystem models in a single grand model. Rather, the subsystem models will be designed to operate independently with the outputs of one subsystem model serving as key inputs to another subsystem model. Integration of the subsystems will start with a simple meta-model that reflects gross changes, and then successively elaborate the model to a level of detail appropriate to address specific policy questions.
While Northern peoples consulted during the preparation of this proposal would like hard answers to their questions, uncertainties are too great to make predictions useful. Therefore, the goal will be to develop a means by which policymakers can systematically examine relationships between policy choices and possible futures. The process will be designed to increase policymakers’ understanding of regional natural and social systems and to provide a vehicle for scientists from different disciplines to exchange ideas and develop complementary research programs.
View or download the Project Description from the original proposal (pdf file - 381K).
