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Arctic Urban Risks and Adaptations (AURA): a co-production framework for addressing multiple changing environmental hazards
Climate change is increasing the vulnerability of arctic urban communities to natural hazards such as unstable permafrost, wildfire, and rain-in-winter events. These hazards put residents and property at risk and impose economic costs. Households, businesses, and governments must adapt to these multiple co-occurring hazards, which may have compound or off-setting interactions. The Arctic Urban Risks and Adaptations (AURA) project seeks to explore how permafrost thaw, wildfire, and rain-in-winter events have changed and will change in the future. The project team has worked with residents, government agencies, and organizations to spatially model these hazards at a resolution that is meaningful for them. As part of their outreach efforts, the team worked to produce a storymap about these hazards, e.g. how the ground temperature regime changes and near-surface permafrost degrades around Fairbanks. Team members have also developed an ArcGIS app so residents of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Matanuska-Susitna, and Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and Whitehorse, Yukon can explore their wildfire hazard. The project team plans to work with stakeholders to develop risk maps and scenarios of an adaptive management plan that can be utilized by residents and communities to make informed decisions to reduce their risks and develop sustainable plans.
Project PIs are Jen Schmidt (University of Alaska Anchorage), Dmitry Nicolsky (University of Alaska Fairbanks), and Jim Powell (University of Alaska Southeast). Project stakeholders include Municipality of Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, City of Whitehorse Yukon, Government of Yukon, Sustainable Earth Research LLC, Anchorage Waterways Council, Soka University of America, Alaska Fire Science Consortium, Cold Climate Housing Research Center, and Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.
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