IARC led workshop on North Slope development
February 22, 2016
International Arctic Research Center researchers led a workshop in Fairbanks, Alaska,
that explored possible energy and resource development scenarios and implications
of future developments on the North Slope.
Led by IARC’s Olivia Lee and Hajo Eicken, the culminating workshop of the North Slope Science Initiative aimed to help resource managers to be more strategic with decision-making for research, rather than only being reactive to the changing and unpredictable socio-economic factors that affect development activities in the region.
Fifty participants, including North Slope residents, resource managers, researchers, nongovernmental organization representatives and NSSI agency and GeoAdaptive company personnel, worked in small discussion groups to identify research and monitoring needed for resource managers on the North Slope.
They discussed such needs as studies of the effects of additional noise disturbance to marine mammals from increased shipping and oil and gas activities, greater understanding of how sea ice would affect oil spill recovery efforts if an offshore oil spill should occur, and a better network of permafrost borehole sites to monitor changes in permafrost for current and future infrastructure on the North Slope.
“A major difficulty that many resource managers face is balancing both current information needs and anticipating future information needs of stakeholders and decision makers,” said Lee.
“The participants found it helpful to use plausible future scenarios to consider present decision-making. It was also helpful to have such a diverse group of experts, including traditional knowledge holders, without which the workshop would not have been this successful,” she added.
The NSSI Scenarios Project team will follow up with making final data products available for managers in a final report and through outreach informational webinars.
Learn more about the North Slope Scenarios Project.