NNA Track 2: Collaborative Research: Interaction Between Coastal and Riverine Processes and the Built Environment in Coastal Arctic Communities

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. The Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe.

NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, enhances efforts in formal and informal education, and integrates the co-production of knowledge where appropriate. This award fulfills part of that aim by supporting planning activities with clear potential to develop novel, leading edge research ideas and approaches to address NNA goals.

It integrates aspects of the natural environment and built environment, addresses important societal challenges, and engages with local communities.

Alaskan communities and their built environment are affected by permafrost thaw, coastal and river erosion, flooding, and other natural processes altered or accelerated by environmental changes. Arctic coastal communities in particular face compound threats from riverbank erosion, permafrost thaw, and increasing coastal storm impacts. As data collection campaigns in the Arctic are costly and often limited to periods of the year when weather affords access to sites of interest, significant gaps in data and information can result.

This NNA planning grant employs workshops designed to discover gaps in knowledge and develop associated research questions and hypotheses to address issues affecting coastal Arctic communities in Alaska. It identifies novel strategies for making targeted measurements in these challenging environments. This project also facilitates development of ideas for novel but feasible long-term data collection and monitoring strategies that encourage and rely upon local community engagement.

Additionally, this project aids the development of a new multi- and interdisciplinary research team to open pathways towards future research efforts.

This NNA planning grant synthesizes and develops key research questions related to the interaction between coastal and riverine processes and the built environment in the coastal Arctic region in the context of environmental change. This research project is positioned at the nexus between the sciences of the natural and built environments and includes co-production of knowledge with local Arctic communities, as it identifies effective data collection and monitoring strategies to answer these questions, pinpoints expertise needed to assemble a diverse and interdisciplinary research team to address these questions, and engages Alaskan Arctic coastal communities and stakeholders to develop a feasible, sustainable, and impactful research strategy.

These goals are achieved through two workshops that include researchers, federal and state agency stakeholders, and community stakeholders, as well as a diverse representation of domestic and international experts, early career researchers, and students. This project engages local community stakeholders into all aspects of the project to learn about and incorporate their knowledge and needs.

The project plans to disseminate research findings widely as it assembles a core research team for future steps into research on Arctic coastal communities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.