NCEAS Working Groups
Arctic options: Holistic integration for arctic coastal-marine sustainability
Project Description
Interests are awakening globally to take advantage of extensive energy, shipping, fishing, and tourism opportunities associated with diminishing sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. This 3-year research project will develop and demonstrate an international, interdisciplinary and inclusive process to enhance the practice of governance for sustainability in Arctic coastal-marine systems, balancing: (a) national interests and common interests; (b) environmental protection, social equity and economic prosperity; and (c) needs of present and future generations. To achieve this holistic project goal, we will carry out tasks addressing the four ArcSEES themes (Natural and Living Environment; Built Environment; Natural Resource Development; and Governance) and including: interdisciplinary data aggregation; geospatial integration of the data to reveal plausible developmental scenarios; annual workshops to generate infrastructure and policy options; and applications of the findings to current issues of Arctic governance.
The sustainability process will be elucidated through case-studies focusing on current ‘hot spots’ in the Western Arctic - Bering Strait and Beaufort-Chukchi Seas (United States, Canadian and Russian interests) – and the Eastern Arctic - Barents Sea (Norwegian and Russian interests) and West Greenland (Greenlandic, Danish, and Canadian interests). We will engage policy makers in the process from bodies like the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, which has a transboundary remit in the Arctic Ocean. To enhance its cost-effectiveness, this project has established links to the SEARCH (Study of Environmental Change: www.arcus.org/search) and ACCESS (Arctic Climate Change, Economy and Society: www.access-eu.org) projects that are supported extensively within the United States and Europe, respectively. This project – which is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique – also will add value through partnerships with the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (www.nceas.ucsb.edu) in the United States and institutions in France associated with the ACCESS project as well as the Ice Atmosphere Arctic Ocean Observing System project (www.iaoos-equipex.upmc.fr). The holistic process we develop to generate and share options for Arctic coastal-marine sustainability will be memorialized by publications and through a video series involving lessons of ‘science diplomacy’ to further stimulate education by and for the benefit of all stakeholders (i.e., representatives of government agencies, academia, industry, non-governmental organizations and civil society). The sustainability process we develop and demonstrate in this project focusing on the Arctic Ocean will have implications everywhere on Earth where resources, human activities, and their impacts extend across or beyond the boundaries of sovereign states.
This project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation Arctic Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (ArcSEES) Program to NCEAS and UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
Principal Investigator(s)
Paul A. Berkman, Frank W. Davis, Jean Claude Gascard, Christine Provost, Oran R. Young
Project Dates
Start: September 1, 2013
completed
Participants
- Jenifer Austin
- Google Inc
- Paul A. Berkman
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Lawson W. Brigham
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks
- Frank W. Davis
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Sara Denka
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Hajo Eicken
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks
- LeeAnne French
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Jon L. Fuglestad
- Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme
- Jean Claude Gascard
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie
- Benjamin S. Halpern
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Art Ivanoff
- Bering Sea Alliance
- Brendan Kelly
- Monterey Bay Aquarium
- Igor Krupnik
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- Olivia Lee
- University of Alaska, Fairbanks
- Dino Lorenzini
- SpaceQuest, Ltd.
- Ed Lorenzini
- Analyze Corp.
- Russell Luttman
- Crowley Marine Services, Inc.
- Denise Michels
- City of Nome, Alaska
- Jamie Montgomery
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Elena Norkina
- University Moscow State Institute of International Relations
- Greg Pavellas
- Crowley Marine Services, Inc.
- Karen P. Pletnikoff
- Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association (APIA)
- Christine Provost
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie
- Julie Raymond-Yakoubian
- Kawerak, Inc.
- Lars-Otto Reiersen
- Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme
- Martin Robards
- Wildlife Conservation Society
- Nathalie Sennechael
- Université Pierre et Marie Curie
- Jimmy Stotts
- Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska
- Dennis Thurston
- Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
- Fran Ulmer
- University of Alaska, Anchorage
- Charlotte Vick
- Sylvia Earle Alliance (SEA)
- Alexander Vylegzhanin
- MGIMO University
- David Wright
- Planet Earth Pictures
- Dan Yocum
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- Oran R. Young
- University of California, Santa Barbara
Products
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Presentations / 2014
The Emperor's New Clothes: Unstructured Data Does Not Exist in the Realm of Big Data
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Journal Article / 2014
'Unstructured data' practices in polar institutions and networks: A case study with the Arctic options project
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Report or White Paper / 2015
Arctic Options Year 2 Annual Report
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Journal Article / 2015
Institutional dimensions of sustaining Arctic observing networks (SAON)
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Journal Article / 2015
Future perspective: The maritime Arctic in 2050
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Journal Article / 2015
Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean
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Book / 2014
The Arctic in World Affairs: A North Pacific Dialogue on International Cooperation in a Changing Arctic
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Book Chapter / 2014
Navigating the Arctic/non-Arctic Interface: Avenues of Engagement
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Book Chapter / 2015
Adaptive Governance for a Changing Arctic
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Presentations / 2015
Governing the Antipodes: International Cooperation in Antarctica and the Arctic
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Presentations / 2015
The Arctic Council at twenty: How to maintain effectiveness in a rapidly changing environment