EOS7.3

The town of Tiksi and the nearby indigenous village of Bykovskiy are located in northern Yakutia, where the Lena River meets the Arctic Ocean. Both owe their existence to Soviet policies and development plans, one tied to the Northern Sea Route, and the other to a fishing enterprise based on the labor of political prisoners. Post-Soviet transformations since the 1990s have severely altered the economic base of these communities, typically resulting in social, cultural and economic shocks and hardships. At the same time, both communities are affected by environmental change, most visibly in Bykovskiy, where coastal erosion caused by permafrost thaw has been destructing the local graveyard and endangers the housing infrastructure.

Interestingly, when we conducted fieldwork there in 2019, our interlocutors seemed to pay very little attention to these environmental problems in the narratives they shared with us. While it might be tempting to accuse local residents of ignoring permafrost thaw and other environmental changes, the situation, we argue, is more complex. In fact, indigenous residents, especially, those making a living by practicing “traditional” activities, such as fishing and reindeer herding, have been observing extreme weather events, shifts in seasonal patterns, and changes in the behavior of land animals and fish for a long time. Similarly, to other parts of the Arctic, this accumulated traditional ecological knowledge has been helpful for adapting to the dramatically changing environment. At the same time, on the discursive and political level, this knowledge has been devalued or, at best, rated as a secondary source of information in relation to a more “advanced” institutionalized expert knowledge. Moreover, the Soviet modernization ideologies and discourses about human-environmental relations have impacted local knowledge, ethics and perceptions of the changing environment. This presentation calls for attention to historical and regional contexts and explores how hierarchical relations between different knowledge systems and how state modernization ideologies inform the ways in which indigenous communities in northern Russia relate to the effects of climate change today.

How to cite: Schweitzer, P. and Povoroznyuk, O.: Ignoring Environmental Change in Bykovskiy, Yakutia? Thawing Permafrost, Indigenous Knowledge and Modernization Ideologies in Northern Russia, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-6765, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6765, 2021.

The Arctic, Nordic, Scandinavian and “global north” regions have, individually and collectively, gained increased public, political, commercial, and academic interest over the last decade. For example, regarding issues ranging from climate change to polar ecosystems, and from shipping routes to indigenous knowledge. As such, there is an increasing demand for state-of-the-art knowledge about the region from truly interdisciplinary viewpoints and multi-scale perspectives (e.g. past, present and future changes, as well as feedbacks between and within the environment and society).

To address such issues, members of the University of Oslo (UiO) and the UiO International Summer School (ISS) developed an interdisciplinary MSc-level course, titled "A Changing Arctic" [1] worth 15 ECTS. The course was structured around three major modules with the opportunity for cross-thematic discussions and knowledge transfer;  Natural Sciences and Technology, Law and Legal Regimes, and Governance and Society. From 2014-2018, for 6-weeks over the northern hemisphere summer, this in-person course welcomed between 15-25 enrolled students annually. It was coordinated by representatives from the Faculties of Law, Natural Sciences (PI from the Department of Geosciences), and Humanities, and also involved a number of guest lecturers from Norway, Europe, and internationally.

Since 2018, we have been in discussions to develop an additional digital, or hybrid (in-person and online), version of the course to alleviate financial and summertime availability constraints. In 2020, the pandemic further brought to light the need for more flexible, wide-reaching teaching options. A “MOOC” - Massive Open Online Course - offers a framework for a formal, high quality, free and widely accessible educational resource. This particularly exciting avenue for reaching people in remote Arctic areas, those who do not fit the traditional university-admissions profiles, as well as people in the global south who may not be familiar with northern processes.

In 2020, we secured funding from UArctic, and other partners, to begin this process, and as of Jan 2021 have begun with digital course preparations for a interdisciplinary Arctic MOOC to be released in late 2021 (in addition to an ISS enrolled-student stream in summer 2021). We aim to share some of the opportunities and challenges associated with this transition, including coordinating a very large thematic project and many international lecturers/contributers, switching from in-person lectures to "flipped-classroom" and video-style lectures, interdisciplinary pedagogical considerations, Nordic educational frameworks, financial challenges and funding opportunities, typical student profiles, as well as more practical filming and digital elements.

[1] https://www.uio.no/studier/emner/iss/sommerskolen/ISSMN4030/index.html 

How to cite: Shephard, G. E., Gaina, C., Pozdnakova, A., Wilson Rowe, E., Kapoor, N., Jønnum, S., Kleivane, S. H., Lindalen, T., Niklasson, K., Bjerknes, A., Kvernmo, T. M., Knudsen, K. A., Lomell, L., Drevsjø, S., and Skjelkvåle, B. L.: An Arctic transformation; from an in-person international summer school to a digital MOOC, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-12584, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12584, 2021.

Maps have always played a central role in the analysis, visualization, and communication of environmental scientific data. In recent years, a growing number of social scientists have turned to mapping and Geographic Information Science (GIS) tools, to visualize and map human experiences, including in the Arctic. At the same time, social and theoretical critiques of GIS as a tool wielded chiefly by and for those in power have increased awareness of its limitations, particularly for studying human perceptions, experiences, and the meanings of place. Indeed, many places tied to human experience, such as emotions, sounds, or memories, cannot be mapped in a conventional GIS: they do not fit the rigidity of the Cartesian grid. They may lack coordinates, or simply have ambiguous boundaries. In this presentation, I discuss how a new mapping methodology – topological mapping – developed in the context of Holocaust research, can be applied for integrating traditional knowledge, or human experience, in Arctic geographical research. This new method pushes the field of GIScience in new directions, providing new opportunities for trans-disciplinary research, which better integrates humanistic data in mapping for analysis and communication. Using examples from using topological mapping whilst working with Saami reindeer herders youth, I demonstrate the potential for this new mapping method in the Arctic.  

How to cite: Westerveld, L.: Topological mapping: new method to map, analyze, and visualize humanistic data in the Arctic, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16365, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16365, 2021.

The Arctic Rivers Project is a National Science Foundation – Navigating the New Arctic funded project aimed at increasing our understanding of the impacts of climate change on rivers, fish, and Indigenous communities across the Northern Alaska and the Yukon River Watershed in Alaska and Canada.  This will be accomplished through water-quality monitoring, a variety of modeling activities, and the development of narratives of change from community members themselves.  Combined these methods will create storylines of climate change in the arctic.  Storylines combine experiential narrative information with model outputs to make the predicated future more tangible regarding potential impacts.  The project team is comprised of researchers from the natural and social sciences as well as the modeling community and two Indigenous organizations focused on science, outreach, and engagement.  To increase the research team’s ability to co-produce knowledge with Indigenous communities across a large study domain we are working with an Indigenous Advisory Council (IAC).  The IAC is comprised of 11 Indigenous community members, leaders, elders and students representing diverse communities across our study domain. The IAC meets via online video conferencing monthly to tackle tasks such as developing knowledge co-production and inclusion and protection of Indigenous Knowledge protocols to guide the project.  Additionally, the IAC is working with a subset of the research team to create the goals, objectives, and agenda for an Arctic Rivers Summit that will bring together Tribal and First Nation resource managers, Arctic and Boreal community members, and academic, Indigenous, federal, state, and provincial researchers to unify the state of knowledge on Arctic Rivers as a community of observers, investigators, knowledge holders, and stewards.  This presentation will discuss the steps taken to form the IAC, the role of the IAC in guiding project implementation, providing advice, and facilitating connections with Indigenous communities.  It is our hope that we may provide an example of successful implementation and design to communicate and co-produce knowledge with communities across a large study domain from which other projects may learn.

How to cite: Herman-Mercer, N., Cozzetto, K., and Musselman, K.: Working with an Indigenous Advisory Council to facilitate effective communication and collaboration between researchers and Arctic communities, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16368, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16368, 2021.

Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) and its committees have emerged as a vital regional facilitator for advancing sustained investments in Arctic observing and data management across a partnership of Arctic and non-Arctic countries, regional and global organizations, including those of Arctic Indigenous Peoples. The lack of a consistent, equitable and holistic planning mechanism has hampered efforts to strategically improve these systems. In response, SAON set forth a vision in its 2018-2028 strategic plan to develop a Roadmap for Arctic Observing and Data Systems (ROADS) to address this systemic shortcoming and improve linkages across independently funded efforts. ROADS will address this short-coming through generating a systems-level view of observing and data system impacts, requirements and implementation strategies under its Roadmap and engaging a diverse and inclusive group of actors to deliver it. A critical success factor for ROADS is the equitable inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in the design and development process, which presents specific challenges. These challenges include differing world views of knowledge systems and historical and current inequities that have limited the degree to which Indigenous communities and organizations can make their voices heard or support the human capacity required to engage in planning. ROADS is embedding strategies to address these challenges, particularly focused on funding Indigenous expertise.

ROADS is both a holistic concept, building from the societal benefit-based approach of the International Arctic Observing Assessment Framework, and one that can proceed step-wise so that the most imperative Arctic observing elements can be rapidly improved and accessed through interoperable data systems. The concept of Shared Arctic Variables (SAVs) occupies a central place in the ROADS planning process (Fig. 1). SAVs are linked to the essential variable strategies of broader global networks (e.g. Global Ocean Observing System, Global Atmospheric Watch), and through an emphasis on broadly shared societal benefit, extend their definitions in support of Indigenous-led benefit and regionally identified science and decision-making needs. Guided by a principle of benefit sharing, the ROADS process is designed to engage diverse partnerships of experts across sectors in support of integrated Arctic observing and data system development

How to cite: Larsen, J. R. and Starkweather, S.: An integrated system of observations driven by societal benefit, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-16516, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-16516, 2021.