Melissa Jane Kenny
Urbanization is not the most common concept associated with the Arctic. Nonetheless, climate change, growing industrial activity, and increased levels of accessibility all suggest that the region is likely to become more urbanized. As these significant changes, environmentally, socially and economically provide both opportunities and threats to the Arctic, there is a critical need to plan for and anticipate these changes to ensure that existing and developing Arctic cities are resilient to the future, both physically and as a social structure. Although Arctic cities exist as hubs of activity within the region, often acting as economic, governance and social centers, urban planners have yet to focus comprehensively on the region. Furthermore, the use of urban planning as a facilitator of urban resilience is a growing concept that is relatively new to the Arctic. Planning can be used to respond to and manage changes to the built environment, increasing the capacity of cities to absorb shocks and changes to the urban fabric. Urban planning as a form of resilience could become a key concept within the urbanization of the Arctic. This paper will take an analytical approach, firstly undertaking a brief investigation into the history of urban planning within the Arctic. In addition, case studies where urban planning has attempted to provide resilience will be discussed and finally the potential for urban planning to contribute to a resilient future in the Arctic in the future will be highlighted.
Verena Gisela Huppert & Romain François R. Chuffart
The Arctic is witnessing the rise of a new paradigm caused by an increase in pan-Arctic collaborations which co-exist with the region’s traditional linkages with the South. Using an analysis of concrete examples of regional collaborations in the Arctic today in the fields of education, health and infrastructure, this paper questions whether pan-Arctic collaborations in the Arctic are more viable than North-South collaborations, and explores the reasons behind and the foreseeable consequences of such collaborations. It shows that the newly emerging East-West paradigm operates at the same time as the traditional North-South paradigm, with no signs of the East-West paradigm being more viable in the foreseeable future. However, pan-Arctic collaboration, both due to pragmatic reasons and an increased awareness of similarities, is likely to increase in the future. The increased regionalization process in the Arctic is both a tool and a consequence of the increasing pan-Arctic collaboration.
Megan J. Highet, Amy Colquhoun, Karen J. Goodman, the Fort McPherson H. pylori Project Planning Committee, & the CANHelp Working Group
The CANHelp Working Group has conducted community-driven research in Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, Canada since 2012. In 2015, the Fort McPherson H. pylori Project Planning Committee requested new research aimed at engaging youth and providing opportunities for capacity building. In response, members of the academic research team proposed a photovoice project aimed at documenting the social impact of H. pylori infection in Fort McPherson that would be carried out with youth in the community. In the Spring of 2016, we commenced this project and delivered a series of in-community workshops aimed at building academic research capacity among the youth. We then organized a weeklong trip for three Fort McPherson youth to visit our project offices at the University of Alberta in the Fall of 2016. In addition to other goals, this visit allowed us to teach these youth about how the CANHelp Working Group research proceeds once the academic researchers have left Fort McPherson. Here, we outline the program of academic research capacity building that we developed and carried out through the Fort McPherson H. pylori Photovoice Project. We then describe the benefits that we noted to have resulted through our approach of integrating capacity building opportunities throughout the research process. We conclude with a discussion that supports the call for new and innovative approaches to integrating opportunities for capacity building into academic research as a means for ensuring that projects generate meaningful and timely benefits for Indigenous communities in general, and Indigenous youth in particular.
Laura C. Engel, Mary E. Short, Sarah E. Jennings, Robert W. Orttung & Luis J. Suter
This paper discusses educator/research experiences as participants in a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project taking place within the larger research endeavor Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE): Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic. Arctic PIRE is based in Washington, DC and operates in collaboration with 13 universities from around the world. As central to the educational outreach strategy of the project, this chapter focuses on the design of an environmental digital storytelling pilot project, called #60above60. The major component of #60above60 involves the digital exchanges of teacher and student-led 60-second videos between classrooms in the DC metropolitan area and Arctic urban communities. Through these exchanges, the aim is for students to share urban life perspectives across the 60-degree parallel, which is how this project defines “Arctic”. This interdisciplinary project’s goal is to connect students from Arctic and non-Arctic communities to examine both local and global environmental challenges, as well as potential solutions. In this chapter, utilizing perspectives in the literature focused on developing global competencies, environmental literacies, and student voices and agencies, we provide a reflection on the design of the #60above60 project.
Hanna K. Lappalainen, V.M. Kerminen, T. Petäjä, J. Bäck, T. Vesala, T. Vihma, T. Haapala, A. Mahura, A. Baklanov, R. Makkonen, A. Lauri, V-P. Tynkkynen, G. de Leeuw, P. Konstantinov, N. Kasimov, V. Bondur, V. Melnikov, S. Zilitinkevich, & M. Kulmala
The Arctic is warming two times faster than the other regions of the Earth system. Spatially, the processes called “Arctic greening” and the Arctic tundra “browning” are bringing the Arctic change closer to the dynamics taking place in the boreal regions. To be able to understand the changing Arctic environments and societies as well as feedbacks between the Arctic and boreal regions and, on a larger scale, between the Arctic and the Earth system, we need a novel conceptual framework of research methods, infrastructures and procedures. The Pan-Eurasian Experiment Program (PEEX), established in 2012, is aiming to be a next-generation natural sciences and socio-economic research initiative using excellent multi-disciplinary science with clear impacts on future environmental, socio-economic and demographic development of the Arctic and boreal regions and China. PEEX is also a science community facilitating novel research infrastructures (in situ observation networks) in the Northern Pan-Eurasian region and China. PEEX delivers conceptual plans of coherent, coordinated, comprehensive in situ measurement and data systems of the Earth surface-atmosphere interactions. PEEX is making an assessment of the existing observation capacities including satellites, versus the future PEEX in situ observation network, which would cover the Northern Eurasian region from Scandinavia to East Asia. The principles of the PEEX in situ observation network is based on the SMEAR (Stations Measuring the Earth Surface – Atmosphere Relations) concept. PEEX is interested in expanding the land-based observation network to cover also the most relevant processes related to the Arctic Ocean and to make a conceptual design of the marine in situ component. In addition, PEEX is taking the first steps for implementing the seamless all-scales-modelling platform and continues to develop the PEEX View Modelling Tool.
Tatiana Burtseva, Vyacheslav G. Chasnyk, Antonina N. Grigoreva & Natalya I. Douglas
Federal laws don’t take into account the poor transportation infrastructure, vast territories and low population density in Yakutia which contributes to the rather poor performance of the health care system in the Arctic regions of Yakutia. Traditional lifestyles formed under the influence of specific climatic and geographic factors has resulted in the development of small settlements situated far away from each other and from medical centers. The implementation of “European” approaches to the delivery of health care services to a sparsely populated and vast territory has given birth to a system where remote, rural communities are serviced by a large number of smaller medical facilities and few hospitals with high level care. With the purpose of evaluating the quality of pediatric medical services, and in order to suggest ways to improve the health care system in the Arctic regions of Yakutia, official statistics as well as the results of an anonymous survey of 1904 mothers and 322 medical professionals were analyzed.
The analysis of current pediatric health care services revealed some trends: a decrease in the number of hospital beds, poor medical equipment maintenance, a shortage of qualified medical personnel, and increasing morbidity. A revision of current concepts of medical care in the rural areas of the Arctic zone is needed. New models of pediatric health care services should be based on the following principles: wider use of mobile diagnostic medical units, wider use of web-based information exchange (tele-consultation, medical reports), special training of medical professionals in rural areas, the introduction of automated systems for preventive examination, and risk-based optimization for improving the emergency medical system.
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