SES Research in Alaska
Comparing marine mammal co-management regimes in Alaska: three aspects of institutional performance (PhD dissertation)
Description: : The goal of this project is to discover how institutions for co-management of marine mammals work in practice and to analyze these institutions for their fit to the problem of managing marine resources in a time of change. Many institutional theorists have examined the idea of policy “fit” in terms of rules matching biophysical properties of the system in review. As a point of departure, this dissertation focuses on the cultural fit of rules to the place and people subjected to management. The study makes three separate contributions to the commons literature: a comparative analysis of cross-scale public administration of two common pool resources, two case studies of network governance and their relationship to policy outcomes, and a causal explanation of how agency culture can enhance the fit between rules in use to rules in force.
Chanda Meek
IPY: Impacts of High-Latitude Climate Change on Ecosystem Services and Society explores the societal consequences of recent and projected changes in ecosystem services, the benefits that society derives from ecosystems. The research goals are to (1) document the current status and trends in ecosystem services in the Arctic and Boreal Forest, (2) project future trends in these services; and (3) assess the societal consequences of altered ecosystem services, including subsistence resources. Subsistence-based communities in northern and Interior Alaska are integrally involved in the design, implementation, and use of research to ensure that the research directly meets stakeholder needs. The project collaborates with similar research programs in other arctic nations to provide a pan-arctic synthesis of status and trends in ecosystem services. The research directly addresses a critical missing link in most global-change research—quantitative assessment of the causes, consequences, and likely future trajectories of those ecosystem services that are of greatest concern to society by providing spatially explicit time series of maps of ecosystem services and their likely future trends. (Chapin, Rupp, Kofinas, Hepa; NSF funding)
Bonanza Creek LTER: Resilience and Vulnerability in Response to Climate Warming
The central objective of the Bonanza Creek LTER research is to identify factors that buffer systems from radical changes in structure and functioning (resilience) vs. factors that might precipitate changes to alternative states (vulnerability). The central question of our research is: How are boreal ecosystems responding, both gradually and abruptly, to climate warming, and what new landscape patterns are emerging?We explore societal consequences by identifying past and potential future changes in ecosystem services that boreal forests provide both locally (e.g., subsistence resources) and globally (e.g., carbon sequestration).
Terry Chapin
Climate change, Changes in Ecosystem Services, and Society (Chapin, Kofinas, Heppa, Rupp, &)- Project using climate scenarios to explore implications to communities and their adaptation. The project draws on downscaled GCM and local knowledge to construct models of local social-ecological
Study of social networks to assessment the vulnerability of local communities to oil and gas development in arctic Alaska – (Kofinas, BurnSilver, Magdanz, Okada) Use of quantitative social network analysis and focus group research to document and analyze the resilience of social networks in subsistence, information, and money exchanges in villages and how changes many affect them. This project is being undertaken in partnership with the communities of Wainwright, Kaktovik, and Venetie.
CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network – (an international team; at UAF it involves is Kofinas, Griffith, White, Barboza, and Bali) Through international cooperation, both geographically and across disciplines, monitor and assess the impacts of global change on the Human-Rangifer system across the circumarctic using local knowledge, field based science, and remote sensing.
Bonanza Creek and Arctic LTERs – Study of social-ecological system dynamics of interior and arctic Alaska with climate change. Includes study of rural and urban systems.
Gary Kofinas
My graduate research project focuses on Native Alaskan food sharing andhow it brings resilience to rural communities during a time of rapidchange, such as oil/gas development and climate change. The social-ecological system I am primarily interested in is the North Sloperegion of Alaska and I would like to link this regional system toresilience theory.
Marcy Okada
Historic resource study of the region encompassing Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Noatak National Preserve and Kobuk Valley NationalPark: an historical narrative focusing on cultural resources includingland use, settlement patterns, resource use and social networks
Neva Hickman
My project is currently titled "Responses to Energy Needs in Rural Alaska:An Opportunity for Innovation and the Expansion of Adaptive Capacity?"
This project uses institutional and resilience analysis to examine the fitof four existing programmatic responses to community needs and norms in adiversity of social-ecological systems in rural Alaska.
Becky Warren
- Potential of Nushagak Bay Tidal Power: a study of the tidal energypotential for the Nushagak Bay fishing industry.
- Baseline Water Quality of Nushagak Bay: Summer monitoring program forwater quality in Nushagak Bayincluding intensive sampling of Squaw Creekin Dillingham.
- Biodiversity of Nushagak Bay: documenting benthic habitats of theNushagak Estuary via trawling and benthic plots.
- Port Heiden benthic habitats and field course: baseline water quality
and benthic habitat survey of Port Heiden to train students inenvironmental science field methods.
- Bristol Bay Sustainable Energy Program: Promoting energy conservationfor rural businesses via technical assistance for public and tribalfacilities
Todd Radenbaugh
Our EPSCoR-funded project (PI: Hartmann, Co-I: Umphenour) is project ALANSO
ALANSO is a variant of the Old German word Alphonse, meaning “ready forbattle.” To increase engagement of Alaska Native people in thecompetitive realm of research requires continuing efforts to developbehaviors of research activity among capable young scholars. ProjectALANSO uses the Theory of Planned Behavioras a framework for targetedtools designed to increase the desired behavior (engage in researchactivities).
Tool #1. We're developing cognitive behavioral resources (Counselor'sportfolio) to be used in partnership with school counselors.Theoretical Target = Change Attitude toward the behavior.
Tool #2. We're employing modeling research activity behavior via digitalmedia (DVD in production now with Moving Images)to be bundled with printelements for use by school counselors.Theoretical Target = Change Perception of social norm
Tool #3. Support of at least one “College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Scholar”for the 2009 UAF summer Earn-&-Learn Program.Theoretical Target = Change Perceived behavioral control.Summer sessions is interviewing students now and we expect scholar to beplaced by mid-May.
Anita Hartmann
One of the projects I was collaborating on involves an examination of medical records on reports of stings from insects (mostly yellowjackets). The number of reported stings for all but one region in Alaska are greater in recent times than in the older datasets. The attached ms describes the work & is currently in press.
Derek Sikes