Human Dimensions (HARC)

Human Dimensions

• A clear design for investigation of the interactions and feedbacks among the human and the biophysical systems

• Interdisciplinary - linking social and biophysical sciences

• Situated in the context of global/arctic environmental change

Human Dimensions Research is Not

• Community participation• Integration of TEK/LEK• Outreach• Education

• All involves humans• All can be part of HD research but these are not research activities…..

Highest Priority Key Unknowns• Ways that human activity in the Arctic affects the Arctic

system. – global activity is a factor in climate change, but what effects are humans in the Arctic having on the system in which they are part.

• Ways that humans in the Arctic are responding to system change. – We know something about various adaptations and changes in behavior, but not nearly enough

• Ways that Arctic change is affecting humans outside the Arctic.

Key Questions• How have and how will Arctic peoples and institutions

adapt to variable environmental conditions, to fluctuating resources, and to changes in the political and economic milieu? (Adaptation)

• How has and how does human agency modify the present and future state of Arctic social-ecological systems? (Feedbacks)

• In the face of multi-dimensional global changes, how will the resilience of the Arctic system change and what policies and practices will lead to greater resilience within the pan-arctic and its subregions? (Resilience)

• How do changes in the arctic system relate to and impact the broader global system? (Teleconnections)

Primary goals

• Quantitative social indicators• Time series HD data• Time series interpretations of HD data• Expansion of HD research beyond the local

scale• Model building to develop understanding of the

behavior(s) of the human component of the system and to explore the implications of behavioral change on a system-wide scale

HARC Research Fills GAPS

• HARC research to date has helped show that human activity in the Arctic may indeed be a factor that needs to be considered.

• HARC research has also showed ways that humans have responded to climate change in the north.

NSF Supported ResearchPaleo

• The Kuril Biocomplexity Project: Human Vulnerability and Resilience to Subarctic Change (http://depts.washington.edu/ikip/index.htmlBen Fitzhugh fitzhugh@u.washington.edu, U of Washington

• Subsistence Choices, Mercury Bioaccumulation, and Ecosystem Change: A Long-term View from the Gulf of AlaskaMaribeth S. Murray, ffmsm@uaf.edu U of Alaska Fairbanks

• Complex Ecosystem Interactions Over Multiple Spatial and Temporal Scales: The Biocomplexity of Sanak IslandHerbert D.G. Maschner maschner@isu.edu Idaho State

NSF Supported ResearchPaleo

• Zooarchaeology & Human Ecodynamics in Northern Iceland and Faroe Islands (ARC/OPP)Thomas McGovern nabo@voicenet.com CUNY Hunter College

• "Warm Times, Cold Times:-Quantitative Reconstructions of Near-Shore Environments Over the Last 2000 Years in Vestfirdir, NW Iceland: Natural Changes and Human Responses (ARC/OPP)John Andrews andrewsj@Colorado.edu U of Colorado

• Shetland Islands Climate and Settlement Project: Historical Ecology and Archaeology of Fragile Coastal Environments (ARC/OPP – SGER)Gerald Bigelow archresearch@suscom-maine.ne U of Maine

NSF Supported Research Human/Rangifer/Terrestrial Systems

• Heterogeneity and Resilience of Human-Rangifer Systems: A Circumpolar Social-Ecological Synthesis (ARC/OPP)http://www.rap.uaf.edu/kofinas/HRS/index.htmGary Kofinas, ffgpk@uaf.edu University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Reindeer Herding in Transition: Feedbacks Between Climate, Caribou, and Local Communities in Northwest AlaskaKnut Kielland ffkk@uaf.edu, U Alaska Fairbanks

• Fire-Mediated Changes in the Arctic System: Interactions of Changing Climate and Human Activities F. Stuart Chapin terry.chapin@uaf.edu U Alaska Fairbanks

NSF Supported ResearchHuman/Coastal/Marine/Sea Ice

• Collaborative Research: Environmental Variability, Bowhead Whale Distributions, and Inupiat Subsistence Whaling - Linkages and Resilience of an Alaskan Coastal System

Robert Campbell campbell@gso.uri.edu, University of Rhode Island Wieslaw Maslowski maslowsk@ucar.edu, Naval Post Graduate School Carin Ashjian cashjian@whoi.edu, Woods Hole Stephen Okkonen okkonen@alaska.net, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• BE/CNH: An Integrated Investigation of Coupled Human and Sea-Ice Systems: A Comparison of Changing Environments and Their Uses in the North American Arctic

Roger Barry rbarry@kryos.colorado.edu

• An Integrated Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Variability on the Alaskan North Slope Coastal Region James Maslanik james.maslanik@colorado.edu

Current ResearchHuman/Freshwater/Watershed

Systems• Collaborative Research: Humans and Hydrology at High

Latitudes (ARC/OPP) Daniel White ffdmw@uaf.edu U Alaska Fairbanks Richard Lammers Richard.Lammers@unh.edu, U New Hampshire • Dangerous Ice, Part 2 (ARC/OPP)

William Schneider ffwss@uaf.edu U Alaska Fairbanks

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Applications of Interactive Integrated Assessment and Modeling to Design Sustainable Development Strategies for Arctic Watersheds (Phase 2) (ARC/OPP)

Robert Wheelersburg wheelersburg@etown.edu Alexey Voinov alexey.voinov@uvm.edu

Current Research Risk/Uncertainty/Decision Making

• Search, Learning and Dynamic Choice under Uncertainty: An Empirical Analysis of Alaskan Halibut Fishermen (SBS/SBE)Quinn Weninger weninger@iastate.edu

• DRU Research Community Development Proposal: Workshop on Climate, Uncertainty, and Multilateral Management of Harvested Highly-Migratory Marine Fish Stocks (OCE/GEO)Kathleen Miller kathleen@ucar.edu

• Migration in the Arctic: Subsistence, Jobs, and Well-

Being in Urban and Rural Communities Terry Huskey aflh@uaa.alaska.edu U Alaska Anchorage

CR - Methods and Education• Traditional Knowledge Transect: Engaging Communities in

Discussions of Environmental Change through a Dog Sled Expedition Across Northeastern Alaska (ARC/OPP)

Henry Huntington hph@alaska.net, Eagle River Alaska

• Indigenous Knowledge Systems Research Colloquium (ARC/OPP)Raymond Barnhardt ffrjb@uaf.edu U of Alaska Fairbanks

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: Expanding Collaboration on Climate Change Issues: Scientific and Inupiat Eskimo Communities in Northern AlaskaRalph Keeling rkeeling@ucsd.edu(Principal Investigator) Tegan Blaine (Co-PI)

• Circle of Knowledge on Climate, Weather and Environmental Change: A Community-based Research Project with the Koyukon Athabascan Communities along the Koyukuk River in Alaska Shannon McNeeley smcneele@ucar.edu, U of Colorado

CR – Methods and Education• Collaborative Research: Investigating Ecological Change in the

Nearshore Kotzebue Sound Ecosystem: Simultaneous Application of Traditional and Scientific Ecological Knowledge

Stephen Jewett jewett@ims.uaf.edu U of Alaska Fairbanks Jeffrey Johnson johnsonje@mail.ecu.edu, E Carolina U William Ambrose wambrose@abacus.bates.edu, Bates College

• Social-Ecological Resilience, Sustainability, and the Future of Remote Resource Dependent Communities Lilian Alessa afla@uaa.alaska.edu, U Alaska Anchorage

• Sustainability and Stewardship in AlaskaS. Craig Gerlach, ffscg@uaf.edu, U Alaska Fairbanks

Future Directions

Emerging Trends

• Derived from perusal of conference papers and posters presented in various disciplinary, interdisciplinary, regional and global contexts

Trends in Paleo HD Research

• Increasing inter-disciplinarity because of a focus on complex system analysis

• Incorporation of LEK • Focus on downscale feedbacks and interactions

as opposed to drivers of change• Merging with other paleo research programs for

development of new proxies• Development of HD research programs in the

Arctic and high Arctic

Policy Area

• Role of institutions in causing and mitigating arctic/global environmental problems

• Role of arctic residents in national and international arctic/global change policy development

• Role of the Arctic Council in managing and planning for arctic/global change (using the Antarctic Treaty System as a model)

Trends in HD Research Health

• Fatality rates and links to arctic/global change• Changes in disease types, invasive infectious

diseases, parasites etc.• Links among arctic change, industrial

development contaminant pathways, exposure rates, and human security

• Food security in the context of Arctic change (farming, agriculture, subsistence, industrial)

Development and Arctic Change

• Synergies among climate change, land use change, and social change

• Rural and urban linkages

• Development at the marine/terrestrial interface

Convergence of Methods

• Multivariate time plots to integrate qualitative data across disciplines and data derived from LK/TK

• Socio-ecological hotspot mapping

• Integrated modeling

• Standardization

• Linking to global human dimensions research agenda and research methods

What else…

- Engaging with geographers and political scientists – driving forces in the global HD research community

- General trends in HD research vary at the international level (i.e. policy heavy, LEK focus, more or less integrated, etc.)

- Much innovative inter-disciplinary research is unfunded or funded at low levels

Funding Priorities

• How human activities in the Arctic affect the system.

– Possibly a substantial component of change, especially locally & regionally.

• Local and regional-scale field work • analysis and modeling and synthesis

• How Arctic climate change affects people. – needs to includes both people in the Arctic and

beyond. • some field studies (Arctic)• more analysis/modeling as well as synthesis (global).