This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Track-1 award seeks to understand complex, coupled human-natural interactions. The specific focus is to evaluate vulnerabilities, resilience, and adaptive capacities of Alaskan communities to the effects of environmental changes occurring in their region. The work involves interdisciplinary research and education in the area of Social Ecological Systems (SES) and is scientifically significant and regionally relevant. The project participants are the three main campuses of the University of Alaska (UA) located in the urban centers of Fairbanks (UAF), Anchorage (UAA), and Juneau (UA Southeast - UAS), 13 satellite campuses in rural areas across Alaska, a Tribal College, and learning centers in small communities around the state.
Intellectual Merit The Alaska Adapting to Changing Environments (Alaska ACE) project will examine how the pronounced changes in the environmental and natural processes affect and are affected by the adaptation capacity of Alaskan communities. The work is organized around three Test Cases in the Southeast, Southcentral, and Northern Alaska to study the changes in landscape and water resources. The project will also support processes that enable communities to better adapt to environmental changes. The results of the Test Cases study will be linked in a broader comparative framework by a Coordination, Integration, and Synthesis Working Group. This group will undertake integrated modeling and deliver research findings as decision-support tools, hold annual Regional Outreach Workshops, and help to craft cyber-enabled visualizations of SES modeling results. Policymakers, resource managers, and members of the public will be invited to participate in 'Decision Theater' events in which they will be able to use decision support tools in real time to view and manipulate possible scenarios of environmental changes and adaptive strategies.
Broader Impacts The Alaska ACE project will advance interdisciplinary SES research methodology and translate research results into visualization tools useful for researchers, local communities, resource managers, and policy makers. The program will train and educate a diverse set of students across Alaska and strengthen partnerships with local communities, government and non-government organizations. At the college level, the program focuses on the training and mentoring of junior faculty and graduate and undergraduate students through grant-writing workshops, interdisciplinary science courses and seminars, student fellowships and internships, and travel support to professional conferences. Engagement of rural, mostly Alaska Native, K-12 students and teachers is targeted through summer scholarships and ongoing statewide programs. Partnerships with the private sector are enabled through student internships at Native Corporations and competitive grants to assist small Alaskan businesses apply for large federal and state funding. The Alaska ACE project will build human capacity for STEM research and education as well as the infrastructure for sustained engagement of rural campuses, local communities, resource managers, and policy makers in socially relevant science.
