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Arcitc Yearbook 2012
Stephenson
320
vast projects requiring considerable investment by federal governments, such as the Alaska Highway
and the Trans-Siberian and BAM railways. Even with government investment, permanent
transportation infrastructure remains sparse. Figure 1 (below) illustrates the scarcity of permanent
roads in the North by depicting total road length and density as a function of latitude.
Figure 1: Total permanent road length (gray) and road density (ratio of permanent road length to land area;
black). Source: author, from U.S. NIMA data (1997). Arrows show the approximate coverage of the Arctic
zone.
Warmer winters due to future climate change may make some areas more suitable for road
construction, but these benefits must be weighed against the additional cost of maintaining existing
built infrastructure over thawing permafrost (Instanes et al., 2005). Furthermore, elevated
temperatures threaten the viability of temporary winter road networks (Hinzman et al., 2005; Hayley
and Proskin, 2008) and are projected to reduce winter road potential in all Arctic states by
midcentury (Stephenson et al., 2011). Comprehensive surveys have found deficiencies in maritime
infrastructure such as timely information needed for safe navigation, availability of search and rescue
and pollution response assets, port reception facilities for ship-generated waste, and availability of
deepwater ports and salvage resources for vessels in distress (AMSA, 2009). Compared to lower
latitudes, infrastructure in the Arctic is less developed and more diffuse.
0%
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80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50 -60 -70
Latitude
Road length Road density