Report on International Field Course on Permafrost and Urban Sustainability: Salekhard and Vorkuta

September 8, 2017September 12, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

During the summer of 2017, the PIRE team made a field trip to Salekhard and Vorkuta in Russia. Here we present a report on the trip from GW Grad Student Luis Suter.

This research trip represented an evolution of a 10-year annual field course, started by the GW-based Arctic CALM project. The field courses were originally focused on educating students on the proper field methods for collecting and measuring permafrost characteristics such as ground temperature, soil composition, and

monitoring changes in active layer thickness. With the integration of the Arctic PIRE project, the field course was expanded to include Arctic urban sustainability themes. These included resource-based boom-bust cycles, urban planning and governance, migration-related social issues, and economic diversification.

The field course also focused on promoting exchanges among the international group of students participating.

The course included students from the United States, Russia, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland (Figure 1). This group, led by four instructors, visited Salekhard in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Orkrug and Vorkuta in the Komi Republic (Figure 2).

Students spent alternating days conducting fieldwork in the tundra and in these cities, while participating in nightly lectures given by both students and professors. Students learned to consider sustainability in the Arctic as an interdisciplinary issue, related to both physical variables such as climate, permafrost, and geology and anthropogenic factors including economic development, migration, and governance.

In the tundra, the group undertook the collection of permafrost and active-layer data in a variety of Arctic landscapes. The students learned traditional techniques, as well as modern technologies, used to measure environmental parameters important to permafrost health (Figure 3).

Aside from these principles of geocryology and how this data can be used in research, students discussed the visible impacts of anthropogenic influence and climate change on the field sites. The impressions of human activity were near-constant, from the scars of old vehicle tracks covered in cotton-grass (Figure 4) to contemporary roads and rail-lines.

While in the urban settings, students engaged with local government officials, urban planners, research centers, museums, and universities to learn about socioeconomic and governance issues in the Arctic. Meetings and presentations with research organizations, including the Arctic Research Center and Center for Economic Development, produced valuable connections for the Arctic PIRE research network. By visiting Salekhard, a city rich with gas resources, and Vorkuta, a declining coal-mining city, students were able to learn about the effects of boom-bust economic cycles through living realities

(Figure 5). Discussions with local representatives from both cities allowed this international group to debate concepts and strategies for sustainable development in the region, particularly in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

Encouraging the ability to view an issue from multiple angles is critical. The exchange of ideas between this diverse group of students, professionals, and locals promoted the growth of this international perspective through research and education. For many students it was the first time in the Arctic. Through their first-hand exposure to the complex interactions of environment, economics, society, and politics within the region, these students walked away as improved scientists and global citizens.

Yakutsk and Mirnyi Fieldwork Report

August 5, 2017August 15, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

July 18-August 1, 2017

Marlene Laruelle (GWU) and Sophie Hohmann (INALCO, Paris)

This PIRE fieldwork was devoted to the study of social urban sustainability in two cities of Sakha Republic (Yakutia): the capital city Yakutsk and the “diamond capital” Mirnyi. Our research focused on demographic, social and cultural changes in Russia’s Far North cities. We collected local statistical data and organized interviews with local diasporas and migrant communities. We also met with officials from the republican-level Ministry of External Affairs, Center for Strategic Studies, House of Friendship, and several scholars from different research centers at the North-Eastern Federal University and curators from local museums.

The “Yakutization” of Yakutsk

Yakutsk is a unique case in the Russian Arctic because it is a city which has been able to avoid massive depopulation. If the republic lost some of its population during the depressed 1990s, the city itself has continued to show a rare dynamism, growing from 196,600 inhabitants in 1989 to 303,800 in 2016. This dynamism is fed by the massive arrival of the titular rural population to the capital city. Such a movement of people is a unique phenomenon: no other city in the republic of Sakha receives a similar influx of rural residents.

Yakutsk is attractive because it is seen as part of a process of climbing the social ladder by the rural population, especially young generations. Several overlapping phenomena explain this attraction:

the departure of Russians for European Russia (about 200,000 have left since the collapse of the Soviet Union, or 35% of the Russian population of the city);
the promotion of the titular nationality in the republican administration;
being the main higher education center in the republic; the local universities and institutes, especially North-Eastern Federal University, the Medical Academy and the State Agricultural Academy, attract mostly young members of the titular nationality.

As Figure 1 shows the number of Russians steadily collapsed after 1989, while the number of Yakuts grew without disruption since the 1950s.

Figure 1. Ethnic distribution of Russian and Yakut population in Yakutia by censuses

Our research also focused on the niches occupied by a third category of the population, that of labor migrants, coming from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The two main ethnic groups are Armenians and Kyrgyz, representing two different patterns of migration. Armenians benefit from a “pull” factor, that of a small diaspora already present in the city in the 1970s-1980s, while numerous Kyrgyz arrived only in the 2000s. It is difficult to obtain statistics from the Federal Migration Service at the municipal level, and many migrants remain undocumented. However, we know that the city of Yakutsk hosted 2,200 Armenians and 2,900 Kyrgyz with Russian citizenship during the 2010 census.

These diaspora and migrant communities occupy specific economic niches: mostly the construction sector—a booming sector given Yakutsk’s demographic growth—followed by the car repair business, and the shoes repair sector for Armenians. Some other groups such as Uzbeks—mostly from Southern Kyrgyzstan, therefore Kyrgyz citizens—dominate the fruit and vegetable import market, especially wholesale bazaars. Many migrants come only for the summer months (from 2 to 5 months) to make money and spend the winter in their home country.

Diaspora and migrant cultural life is organized around two main institutions: the ethnic associations represented at the House of Friendship (Dom druzhby), in charge of folkloric activities (celebration of national holidays, traditional dances and songs), and the religious buildings. The Armenian community built a church in 2014, thanks to a group of generous Armenian businessmen, and is waiting for a permanent priest. The mosque has existed longer: it was erected in 1997 by some members of the Ingush diaspora, and was totally rebuilt in 2014, to receive a growing number of Muslims, including some Yakuts and Russians converted to Islam. The mosque is multinational, with Ingush, Tajiks and Uzbeks being the most numerous attendees to religious services.

The Armenian Church and the Mosque

Mirnyi offers a totally different outlook of urban development. The diamond capital is a monotown entirely dominated by Alrosa, Russia’s partially state-owned diamond company. Like all other cities of the republic with the exception of Yakutsk, the city is not facing a Yakutization process: Russians remain largely dominant, comprising 24,000 people of 37,000 total inhabitants. There are only 3,600 Yakuts (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Ethnic distribution in Yakutsk and Mirnyi, 2010 census

A large part of the population works for Alrosa and its subsidiaries: over the whole Mirnyi district, Alrosa employs about 40,000 people from a total of 96,000. As the city’s main mine stopped working in 2001, diamond extraction increasingly takes place in other small towns of the district, such as Aykhal and Udachnyi, by long-distance commuting workers based in Mirnyi. There too, migrants are present, with Kyrgyz being the first diasporic ethnic group, working in the construction sector and trading clothes and everyday items, while Uzbeks control the fruit and vegetable kiosks. The city hosts a mosque and veiled women are visible in the streets of the city. A similar trend is noticeable in other industrial cities: in Nenyungri for instance, the second city of the republic with 60,00 inhabitants, between 10,000 and 15,000 residents are Muslim, though there are only 1,800 Yakuts.

The city and the mine of Mirnyi seen from the sky

Housing for long-distance commuting workers in Aykhal

Sakha-Yakutia therefore displays a dual urban development pattern: the capital city of Yakutsk displays rapid demographic growth and indigenization, thanks to a diversified economy and its status as a republican administrative center, while all the other cities (Mirnyi, Nenyungri, Lensk, Aldan), centered on extraction industries, remain demographically stable and dominated by Russians.

What Does a Sustainable City Look Like?

July 30, 2017July 30, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Over the past year, as Arctic PIRE researchers worked to develop an appropriate set of indicators by which to measure urban sustainability in Arctic cities, the team wrestled with notions of “Arctic,” “urban,” and “sustainability,” for none of which is there a single, universally accepted definition. “Arctic” was settled on as being the region above 60˚ North, as a sort of average of the many geographical and geopolitical parameters that are used to define the Arctic. “Urban” is defined functionally as a densely populated area that serves diverse social, cultural, economic, and political functions, and has a minimum population size of 12,000 people. “Sustainability” is perhaps the most difficult to pin down, as noted by the volumes of research grappling with the concept. How should sustainability be defined, particularly as it relates to Arctic cities?

The 1987 Brundtland Commission definition of sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” has guided research and served as a driver for countless initiatives, though the definition is incredibly broad, and plenty of other definitions have been proposed. In the urban context, the UN Sustainable City Program defined the sustainable city as one that is able to retain the supply of natural resources while achieving economic, physical, and social progress, and remain safe against environmental risks that could undermine development. For Arctic cities, along with others, climate change presents a significant environmental risk to both development and the preservation of natural resources. As the Arctic faces these unfolding environmental changes, Arctic cities are facing similar challenges to other global cities in achieving economic, physical, and social progress. A sustainable Arctic city will be one that can meet its social, cultural, environmental, and political needs, alongside economic and physical objectives, while ensuring equitable access to all services by residents, without draining the city’s resources (Rogers 1997).

Brent Toderian, an urban planner and urban sustainability expert, proposed eight pillars of a sustainable city that represent some of the broader sustainability ideas but also outline concrete representations of sustainability in an urban environment, applicable to all cities, including those in the Arctic.

A Complete walkable community in which mixed use facilities and mixed housing meet the varied needs of residents and various price points to ensure affordability, and the community is designed to protect the natural features.

A low-impact transportation system that prioritizes cycling and walking, and incorporates many alternatives to single-person automobile use.

Green buildings that use green design such as LEED, and include many multi-family dwellings.

Flexible open space that accommodate both community and ecological needs including natural habitat, recreation, and space for growing food.

Green infrastructure that addresses the supply and management of energy, water and waste, and includes innovative and financially viable heating and cooling options.

A healthy food system that includes community garden space and food outlets, as well as preserving social and cultural food celebration, and incorporates other creative food-producing outlets.

Community facilities and programs that support a healthy lifestyle for community members of all ages, that promote safety and well-being, and that foster community connection.

Economic development including opportunities for business, investment, and employment, and includes a range of commercial facilities.

These pillars help to envision what a sustainable Arctic city would look like, and to begin to measure cities’ progress towards these ideals.

The Link Between Urban Density and Sustainability

July 12, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

The city center in Luleå, Sweden, is a tree-lined pedestrian- and bicycle-only thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants. The city buildings are, with few exceptions, only a few stories tall. At the periphery stand a few apartment buildings, each four to five stories tall, and most in the same iconic colorful batten on board construction as the houses in the surrounding neighborhood. On a weekday, the city hums with life: commuters headed to work on city buses, shoppers with their pull-behind wheeled carts, young parents following toddlers on stride bikes, and a gaggle of middle-school-aged girls headed to the beach. Gingerbread rooflines and lush green spaces throughout and surrounding the city lend a quiet storybook charm to the city.

Luleå is a low-density city, and many of the city’s residents live in neighborhoods well beyond the city center. The sprawl of Luleå is partly due to the topography—the coastal city encompasses a number of islands and peninsulas and has developed around the numerous inlets and lakes, but increasing the density of the city center would decrease the breadth of sprawl and concentrate a greater percentage of the population in the city. Would increasing the density of Luleå’s city center, however, decrease the quality of life for the city’s residents? Does an increase in density necessarily decrease green space, community space, or other spaces that contribute to the well-being of a city’s residents? These are important questions to consider, as density is a key quality for sustainability in terms of resource use in urban centers, but excessively high density or poorly managed density can negatively impact the health and social sustainability of a city.

Poorly managed density leads to overcrowding. There may be a minimum threshold of square footage of dwelling space per person required to not be considered overcrowded, but generally overcrowding is linked to management and perception. Population density in a stadium is not perceived as problematic, but a much lower level of density feels intolerable in highway traffic. The perception and tolerance for density or overcrowding is informed in part by cultural factors: levels of acceptable density are perceived differently in Kolkata and Stockholm. Overcrowding can be thought of as the stress experienced because of too high a population density in a given set of circumstances (Kutner 2016). Overcrowding, rather than population density, can lead to increased tension between residents and sometimes result in violence. From a management perspective, overcrowding is the result of inadequate management and provision of resources such as water, electricity, and housing.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, high population density has led to overcrowding because of inadequate infrastructure (IRIN 2010; Hamer 2014). Without sufficient clean water sources, adequate roads and transportation networks, or sewage treatment, the quality of life for residents is extremely low, and the city has been ranked as one of the worst in Asia for ease of doing business. Recent efforts to improve transportation through increased rail transit has thus far been stymied by lack of funding and poor coordination between levels of government (Hamer 2014).

High-density, low-rise development is the ideal for urban layouts, striking a balance between efficiency and quality of life, but small dwelling units are required to adequately increase urban density (Patel 2011). High-density development increases the efficiency with which municipal services can be provided, creates economies of scale, and preserves the surrounding natural environment. High-density urban development is also a prerequisite for effective public transportation networks, an important component for achieving urban sustainability. A 1977 study by Boris S. Pushkarev and Jeffery M. Zupan shows that public transit works best where residential density exceeds 4200 persons per square mile.

High-rise buildings and vertical cities (high-rise buildings with other self-contained municipal functions such as water treatment and power generation) offer one potential solution to increase density in cities and maximize efficiency in transportation, infrastructure, and service provision. But high-rise living is not without its drawbacks. First, not everyone is interested in this type of lifestyle- young, single men are generally the most amenable to the idea. Second, high-rise living can present some health challenges: children’s physical development may be stifled by the constraints of available play facilities; respiratory infections are more prevalent among women and children living in high-rise buildings; and high density developments can have a negative influence on mental health by reducing community interaction and increasing tensions (Wong 1998; Young 1976).

Population growth, migration, and urbanization in Arctic cities mimics global urbanization trends. With two-thirds of the world’s population predicted to live in cities by the year 2050 (UN 2014), it’s important to consider urban density and management to increase sustainability, improve quality of life, and decrease the negative effects of overcrowding.

Arctic Cities on the Move: Adapting to Environmental Changes through Relocation

July 7, 2017Uncategorized1 Comment

At the edge of town, a brand new playground sits unused, the swings perfectly still. The park is eerily quiet, with only a distant excavator piercing the silence. A lone Arctic Hare looks at me before bounding off. A few white wildflowers are blooming along the edges of the wide crushed gravel paths, but otherwise there’s not much in the way of life here. Each of the park’s quadrants are buffered by a low wall made of wire cages containing bits of brick and concrete rubble. Benches are made from the same. Beyond these rubble walls sit a row of vacant brick buildings, the windows removed, and a menagerie of plumbing fixtures on the lawn. These buildings are destined to become nothing but rubble like that which forms this park. A pair of blue banners boast “decommissioning for continued mining” in Swedish and English. Kiruna, Sweden, is slowly packing up and moving the whole city three kilometers east because of destabilization due to iron mining.

*These houses too are destined to become nothing but the rubble that fills the wire cages in the foreground. Photo by the author.*

Kiruna is one of many Arctic cities that has chosen relocation as an adaptation to environmental changes. Whether primary human activity, secondary effects of anthropogenic climate change, or other natural phenomena, environmental changes in the Arctic often present cities with limited means of adaptation other than relocation.

In Kiruna, the nearby iron mine is both the lifeblood and the angel of death for the city. The iron ore runs deep, and inconveniently right under the current city center. The choice between ceasing mining and adapting to the destabilization hardly seemed like a choice. While tourism is booming here north of the Arctic circle, this is first and foremost a mining town, and if not for the mine, Kiruna would not exist at all. And so the city is moving. The most vulnerable buildings have already been removed, and just outside of town, a handful of historic buildings sit on trailers, having been liberated from their foundations, and await relocation to the new city site. Eventually the whole city center will be relocated, and buildings that the town has identified as historically or culturally important—the clock tower, the cathedral, iconic “inkwell” houses—will be moved to the new site, while less important buildings such as the 1960s-era brick buildings built as company housing will be dismantled. LKAB, the state-owned mining company, is required by Swedish mining law to replace any housing that is destroyed due to the mine, and so new housing will be built in the new city.

*The Kiruna iron mine in the background, and debris from deconstructed city buildings in the foreground. Photo by the author.*

Signs around town proclaim that Kiruna is a “City on the Move!” Tour guides who take visitors deep into the iron mine paint a rosy picture of the development of the new city, and indeed the architectural renderings imagine a modern city that reflects that cultural history and the Arctic identity of the city. But walking among the piles of debris, with signs of destruction everywhere, it’s hard not to wonder about what will be lost. While Kiruna adapts to an environmental catastrophe of its own making, it is not the only Arctic city to turn to relocation as a means for adapting to a changing environment.

In 1649, the town of Luleå, Sweden, was moved from its original site because of decreasing sea level. Post-glacial rebound, the process by which land rises after being freed of the weight of a glacier, caused the effective decrease in ocean levels leaving the bay too shallow for ships to enter. These days the old city site, now referred to as Gammelstad (meaning old town), is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and visited mostly by tourists and for special events. The modern city of Luleå still relies heavily on shipping, and continues to face the same challenge of post-glacial rebound and decreasing sea levels as in the past. Old timers remember islands that were previously accessible only by boat, but are now separated instead by mud bars, allowing people to wade between the smaller islands. The municipality of Luleå plans to deepen the port to allow bigger ships, but even if not for this multi-billion kronor project, the city would have to continuously dredge the harbor just to continue to allow ships that are currently using the port. Modern technology that makes dredging an option means that for now, Luleå won’t have to resort to relocation as the only method to preserve the city’s viability.

*A row of wooden church cottages lead to the cathedral in Gammelstad, Luleå. Photo by the author.*

While in Kiruna, the decision has been made to continue the activity that necessitates relocation, and in Luleå alternative measures can be used to adapt to environmental changes, coastal and island towns in the Arctic such as Shishmaref, Alaska, have fewer options and much less influence over the changes that affect their towns. Sea level rise threatens to overtake the barrier island on which Shishmaref is located. Investing in sea walls and coastal barriers help mitigate the effects of rising sea levels in the short-term but in the long-term, leaving is the only viable choice. While climate refugees in Louisiana and the Carteret Islands were resettled in other communities, the village of Shishmaref plans to relocate the whole town. Relocating a whole community may help preserve some community social networks, but comes at no small price. The relocation of Shishmaref will cost an estimated US$180 million, and so far the source of that funding is uncertain. Shishmaref is one of 31 villages that the Arctic Institute estimates will need to be relocated on account of rising sea levels due to climate change.

The residents of Shishmaref voted 89 to 78 in favor of relocation, with opinions largely split among age groups. While some voted against the move because of trepidation of the new site that was chosen, many of the older residents see the island as their home, and though they might retain their families, neighbors, and social networks in the move, the places that have framed their lives- their house, the school, the land itself- would be lost. It’s hard to tell whether relocating an entire town helps to preserve social capital more effectively than resettling individual residents. Relocating an entire town or city is an extreme measure for adapting to environmental changes but as climate change progresses causing thawing permafrost and rising sea levels, many Arctic cities will face few options other than to pack up and leave.

Reflections on Fieldwork in Yakutsk

June 30, 2017August 28, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

By Ksenia Mokrushina – SKOLKOVO Center for Urban Studies, Moscow

The coldest city of its size or larger on the planet, Yakutsk is impressively vibrant and rich in cultural and urban life. Over the past 50 years it experienced an explosive population growth of 300% and is still actively attracting people from neighboring regions. Today, the city is home to over 325 thousand people. Situated on continuous permafrost, Yakutsk has a long-standing experience of design and construction in extreme weather conditions. The city is cut off from the rest of Russia: located on the west bank of the Lena with no bridge, so the city is only accessible for its own citizens, visitors and goods by air, ferry or over the frozen river in the dead of Siberian winter. Although not strictly an arctic city, Yakutsk is the capital of the vast Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 40% of which lies beyond the North Polar Circle (Figure 1). Five mono-settlements are located in the region, including Mirny on the famous Mir diamond mine and the shrinking coal-mining city Neryungri, second largest in the Republic. The population of the once prosperous northernmost port city of Tiksi has shrunk almost threefold after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost 0.5 mln of indigenous people live in Yakutia, out of which 93% are Yakuts, whose well-being and position is the region is continuously improving.

It is the extraordinary nature of large Russian northern cities and their intrinsic relationship with the Artic that brought Brent Ryan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Ksenia Mokrushina of the Center for Urban Studies SKOLKOVO to Yakutsk to begin their research on innovation in urban sustainability policy in arctic cities. Brent and Ksenia studied Yakutsk’s experience in urban planning and design, mass housing maintenance and construction in permafrost conditions, and the context, policies and challenges of Yakutian monocities development. An important task of the mission was to identify sources of policy innovation, evaluate the level of accessibility of quantitative and qualitative data, build partnerships with local organizations and institutes to include them in the PIRE network, as well as research educational outreach efforts later on. They held over 20 meetings with people from the regional government and municipal administration, research institutes and think-tanks, local universities, , representatives of local business and creative industries, and civil society organizations. Among them are the State Commission for the Arctic, Institute for Permafrost Studies, the Center for Strategic Studies, North-Eastern Federal University, Association of Reindeer Herders, etc.

Figure 2: Meetings with representatives from Yakutsk

The team has found out that negative effects of climate change are taking their toll on Yakutsk. Thawing permafrost causes visible deformation of buildings, road surfaces and pavement. The city increasingly suffers from the vagaries of the Lena river, which make the ‘northern delivery’ of food and energy supplies completely unpredictable for Yakutsk and the remote settlements in Arctic Yakutia. The economic losses arising from climate change are becoming evident, although not evaluated by the municipality.

Figure 3: Aged Housing Units in Yakutsk

Upgrading of dilapidated housing stock and ensuring systemic deployment of affordable, energy efficient, solutions in new construction, energy, heating and other municipal services poses a significant urban sustainability challenge for the city. Yakutsk is one of the few large Russian cities that is still struggling to solve the problem of urban slums with absent or poorly functioning heating, water, waste management systems, as well as inadequate transport, food and services access. There are still a lot of run-down wooden barracks built back in 1950-60s as temporary housing for builders of ‘khruschevki’. They are being slowly replaced with new mass housing projects of questionable quality and a lot of people are still trapped there waiting for private developers or the municipal government to relocate them within the framework of federal dilapidated housing relocation program. Effective institutional engagement mechanisms to ensure faster and better quality renovations are clearly missing. Without municipal services and housing policy change the city is unlikely to break the vicious circle of local budget deficits and excessive dependence on federal donations and centralized decision-making.

The city is tackling the challenge of unwelcoming public spaces, streetscapes exacerbated by ubiquitous empty spaces of the khruschevka mass housing design pattern, the sight of worn-out external piping, frightening vacuums in-between stilts under houses, lack of trees and greenery. Local design and architecture companies encouraged by the chief architect of Yakutsk and supported by experts from around Russia including the successful local IT company SINET volunteer to develop design projects for abandoned places, disused park territories and canal embankments. A number of these projects will be financed and implemented as part of the federal government driven program “5 Steps towards a more сomfortable city” that is criticized for a standard beautification approach to local urban design problems in Russian cities.

The same urban beautification program is implemented in monotowns and settlements around Yakutia following federal policy requirements. Planning and realization is hindered though by the lack of local capacity and understanding of the need for better urban environment. The Fund for Monocities Development has been recently established to coordinate federally driven local economy diversification programs, including the establishment of ‘zones of intensified development’ offering advantageous conditions for doing business and investing in monotowns,. Whether the new federal monocity development program will bear fruit, remains to be seen. What’s obvious, however, is that there is not enough locally driven strategic planning and policy innovation, community engagement and proactive approaches to local problem solving.

The team was lucky to visit a village 130 km away from the capital, which gave them a unique opportunity to see the other side of the urbanization challenge in Yakutsk. The village is struggling to retain its younger residents, develop local eco-tourist and farming businesses. However their entrepreneurial spirit is still dominated by the habit of relying on support and directions from the government.

Yakutians see the preservation of their unique local arts, culture, and spirit as the key prerequisite of sustainable development. Indeed, Yakutsk boasts a large number of theaters, museums and art galleries that are well-known in Russia; and the Yakutian film industry has established itself globally. The development of local creative industry is one of city’s strategic goals. Almazergienbank, the largest bank in Yakutia, has made the creative cluster project one of its strategic investments and is actively promoting the themes o around the Republic in cooperation with Calvert 22. The State Arctic Institute for Arts and Culture was established in 2000 with the aim to preserve and develop local cultural heritage. Aysen Nikolaev, the Mayor of Yakutsk, believes creative industries will be the main driver of the city’s economic development.

Everything seems to be taken to the limit in Yakutia: from the seasonal temperature differences of over 100°C to the warmth and hospitality of the northern people. This calls for unconventional, locally sensitized approaches to urban sustainability. Thorough research into sources, drivers and prerequisites for locally grown creative potential is required to make arguments and give recommendations regarding the needed policy action.

Figure 3: Workshop with Local Representatives

Arctic PIRE Students Prepare for Siberian Fieldcourse

June 29, 2017June 29, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

International Arctic Field Course on Permafrost and Northern Studies

Blog 1 – Carlson Giddings

On July 3rd, 2017, five professors and 20 students from the US, Russia, and European Union countries will gather in Moscow to begin a month-long field course on permafrost and northern studies. This field course presents a unique opportunity for an international study of how natural and technogenic landscapes in Arctic cities are impacted by climate change and permafrost conditions. For this study, the team of students and professors will study the impacts of permafrost thaw on two Siberian cities, Salekhard and Vorkuta.

Salekhard, a portion of which reaching across the Arctic Circle, is the capital of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Russian high north. Meanwhile, Vorkuta, a subarctic municipality, is considered part of the Komi Republic. In an article by The Siberian Times, Salekhard was described as a “new economic frontier,” given its close proximity to oil and gas fields and the municipality’s commitment to industrial and infrastructural development. The population of Salekhard has grown rapidly in light of these conditions with migrants driven by higher wages and increasing social and cultural opportunities for their families. As of the 2010 census, the population of Salekhard was 42,544.

Photo from The Siberian Times

While Salekhard is known for its industrial oil and gas extraction, Vorkuta is known for its industrial coal extraction. Vorkuta’s coal mining industry originally employed Gualag prisoners during when during the early to mid-1900s it served as an administrative center for smaller groups of municipalities with labor camps and coal mines. As one of Soviet Siberia’s largest labor camp and coal mining operations, today Vorkuta exists as a historical monument of that window of Russia’s history.

With the field course quickly approaching, several curiosities come to mind. Firstly, given that climate change has induced geotechnical and infrastructural construction challenges in most high north cities, how have settlements like Salekhard and Vorkuta adapted practices of urban architecture and design to accommodate for these challenges? Secondly, as a global rise in the appeal of adventure tourism becomes increasingly apparent, how has this rise impacted Salekhard and Vorkuta? Are these cities planning for an increase in tourism? If so, in what ways? Finally, what opportunities exist for university-age students in Salekhard and Vorkuta to study permafrost or climate change? What kinds of jobs do degrees in these fields lead to?

Overall, Arctic PIRE’s geography and northern studies field course in Siberia presents a unique opportunity for an international group of students, research assistants, and professors to engage with Arctic science in live time and be able to draw conclusions about what sustainability means and how it can be measured in an urban Arctic setting.

Aaron Doering – Educator and Adventurer Visits Arctic PIRE

June 29, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

The Man Who Does it All

Aaron Doering is an educator, explorer, and software engineer of unique quality. To put him into context one has to consider the life of earlier high profile explorers, Jaque Cousteau, or Ernest Shackleton, for example. Transport Shackelton to a modern era, and offer him the opportunity to share his explorations with the public via social media and it puts Doering’s work into perspective. Follow Doering’s body of work and one quickly becomes entangled in his narrative as he studies and advocates for people who too often go unheard, their stories, and the stories of a rapidly changing planet.

University of Minnesota (2017) describes Dr. Doering’s academic research as focused on the pedagogy he pioneered, adventure-learning (AL), which is an integrative approach to teaching geography, environmental science, cultural competency, and digital storytelling. He defines adventure learning as a “hybrid online educational environment that provides students with opportunities to explore real-world issues through authentic learning experiences within collaborative online learning environments” (Doering, 2006a, p. 200). Doering’s (2006) article discussed the ways in which teachers utilized an interactive online experience, Arctic Transect 2004: An Educational Exploration of Nunavut. The program was designed to to engage students in the fields of geography and environmental education through real-time interactions with Doering as he traveled on a 3,000 mile dog-sled expedition across Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic (Doering, 2006). While AL uses the expedition, with its thrilling sense of adventure as a catalyst for students engagement, the AL curricula plays out as problem-based learning centered around an question that needs to be solved by interacting with the AL online environment. Students interact with their peers, experts, and teachers, to solve the problems that are driving the curriculum modules (Doering, 2006).

As a full professor at the University of Minnesota, Doering is the director of their Learning Technologies Media Lab (LTML) where he teaches his students to design online learning environments (UMN, 2017). Doering himself has created more than 15 online learning environments that have reached over 15 million learners worldwide. In the years following his professorship at University of Minnesota, Doering was nothing short of prolific, publishing over 15 research papers from the years 2002 to 2008.

More recently Doering began collaborating with National Geographic to develop another online learning program, “GeoThentic”. Doering, Veletsianos, Scharber, and Miller (2009) describe GeoThentic as a technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge framework (TPACK) that places students in the role of a geographer, working toward solving a geographic problem. It employs a scaffolded program, developed from his earlier research, wherein educators choose the level of scaffolding appropriate for their students. Geothentic software creates opportunities for students to solve authentic complex problems within an online environment, while concurrently providing teachers with the necessary TPACK foundation necessary for teaching modules available within the digital learning environment (Doering, 2017, February 23).

Additionally, teachers or students visiting Doering’s website chasingseals.com will find WeExplore, a platform where individuals plan and share their own personal expeditions in nature, Raptor Lab, another online learning environment where students engage in scientific investigations by role-playing various scientific careers involved in wildlife rehabilitation. Earth Explorers, and the Changing Earth, are both programs where Doering and his team travel to communities around the globe and engage with local communities as members of those communities describe the ways climate change is impacting their lives.

In researching Aaron Doering, I am humbled by the breadth of his work, the scope of his projects, and the grandness through which they are implemented. Here is a man, who while teaching in a classroom, believed there was a better way to reach students. Over the past 15 years, Doering has brought that belief into being. But more importantly, Doering is motivating students to become responsible citizens of the planet earth. Furthermore, he makes room for those who are most often silenced to be heard, to become empowered and to support each other through digital medium. As a researcher, I am passionate about deepening student’s ecological literacy and sense of engagement around environmental issues. Additionally, I firmly believe that today’s children will be tasked with addressing environmental issues on a scale humans have never encountered. Educators and educational communities must dedicate significant mental and physical resources to develop programs of study that instill in today’s children the cognitive and cultural capabilities for mitigating the effects of climate change through creative, innovative design and planning. Doering, by engaging students and motivating them to learn about both technology and Earth, is doing the hard work of preparing the future so that they may solve problems where we have failed.

The Importance of Public Transportation for Sustainability in Arctic Cities

June 26, 2017June 26, 2017Uncategorized1 Comment

Public transportation is an important contributing factor to urban sustainability. Effective transportation networks that incorporate public transit help lower a city’s per capita carbon footprint, and make cities more livable by easing commute and transportation needs and increasing accessibility. But the mere presence of public transportation—the number of buses, trains, trolleys, and trams available—does not paint a complete picture. The Sustainable Cities Institute names five principles of sustainability for municipal transportation: accessibility; affordability; connectivity; holistic transportation and land use planning; and planning with the environment in mind.

Holistic transportation, land use planning, and planning with the environment in mind means that transportation systems include many elements including streets, sidewalks or pedestrian networks, transit, bicycle routes, plus private and public fleets. Those elements interface effectively with both the physical geography and commercial and residential development, and account for other environmental factors such as seasonal trends and extreme weather.

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a development approach that focuses on land use around a transit hub or within a transit corridor. The Sustainable Cities Institute describes TOD as characterized by mixed use land, moderate to high density, pedestrian-oriented, reduced parking, and multiple transportation choices. The definition may be relatively new, but the fundamental idea of development built around transportation is ancient. Cities have always sprung up alongside rivers not only for the water source for personal and commercial consumption, but especially as modes of transportation for people and cargo, facilitating trade. The oldest known human civilization, Mesopotamia, developed in a river valley, along with settlements along the Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow Rivers. In the U.S., historically industrial cities like Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Cincinnati, Ohio, are clustered around rivers.

Though an ancient idea, TOD responds to modern calls for sustainable urban development in response to climate change, increased urbanization and demand for walkable cities, rising energy prices, and increased road congestion with increasing urban density. TOD can address some of the environmental, social, and economic challenges in implementing sustainable transportation networks including fuel sources including fossil fuels and resultant greenhouse gas emissions, and renewable energy; funding challenges; commuting costs; and human health.

Anchorage City Bus “People Mover” (photo credit: Mel Green)

In May 2017, Arctic PIRE researchers travelled to Anchorage, AK, where many civic and community leaders expressed that one significant sustainability challenge that the city faces is a poor relationship between the physical layout of the city and the transit network. The city is low density, sprawled over quite a large area, and was not developed around a transit corridor, nor has the transit network been adequately developed to connect the city. This has resulted in reliance on personal automobiles, low ridership on city buses, and poor accessibility for those who rely entirely on public transportation. The bus system was also not particularly accessible to tourists- as visitors, the system seemed labyrinthine and service was too infrequent to be functional for our needs. Forthcoming changes to the system (planned for October 2017) promise a more sustainable transit system with streamlined service, bus stops in closer proximity to people and jobs, and increased frequency of routes particularly during weekday commutes.

Some cities in Sweden’s Arctic demonstrate more sustainable transportation systems. At a national level, Sweden has committed to a fossil-fuel independent public bus fleet by 2030, already resulting in a 43% decrease in public bus emissions between 2007 and 2014 (Xylia and Semida 2017). These gains have been more pronounced in southern counties, while in the northernmost counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten, buses still rely overwhelmingly on fossil fuels. At a municipal level, both Umeå (in Västerbotten) and Luleå (in Norrbotten) are making strides towards decreasing their bus emissions. Umeå has recently begun transitioning their bus fleet to battery-powered buses, a move that has been a proof-of-concept of the suitability of battery-powered vehicles for cold environments. Luleå’s intent to limit the environmental impact of transportation in spite of continued growth, part of its aspirational sustainable development plan “Vision 2050,” is illustrated in the growing fleet of biogas buses.

Luleå city bus, with real time information posted at bus stop

In addition to high efficiency vehicles, alternative fuel, and TOD, Luleå is also building its sustainable transportation network through demand management, traffic calming, and connectivity between multiple forms of transportation. Systems that use real-time data to provide information for planners on ridership and help manage demand while also providing riders accurate information on bus timetables, routes, and arrival times. Restricted access for vehicles in the city center, designated lanes for bikes and buses, and narrowed city streets act as traffic calming measures keeping the city center pleasant and accessible for workers and residents. The transit hub in the city center is a stop on nearly all local bus routes, and is immediately adjacent to the pedestrian and bicycle thoroughfare. Bicycle parking is plentiful near bus stops, city buses are equipped with bike racks, and regional buses allow bicycles as cargo. A central bus station serves both local and regional buses and is located across the street from the train station, thus providing seamless connectivity for those traveling to and from areas outside the city. These connections, along with a city that has protected pedestrian and bicycle networks, means that individuals can travel easily using a combination of walking, biking, buses, and trains.

Urban transportations that increase affordability, accessibility, and connectivity, while incorporating good land use planning and environmental considerations significantly contribute to urban sustainability. As Arctic cities grapple with increasing urbanization, migration, climate change, and economic challenges, sustainable transportation systems can decrease environmental impact while increasing social and economic sustainability.

Resources

Beim, Michal, and Martin Haag. 2011. Public Transport as a Key Factor of Urban Sustainability: A Case Study of Freiburg. Badania Fizjograficzne. R. II—Seria D—Gosrodarka Przestrzennia. January: 7-20.

Buzási, Attila, and Má Csete. 2015. Sustainability indicators in assessing urban transport systems. Periodica Polytechnica.Transportation Engineering 43, (3): 138-145.

Kennedy, Christopher, Eric Miller, Amer Shalaby, Heather Maclean, and Jesse Coleman. 2005. The Four Pillars of Sustainable Urban Transportation. Transport Reviews 25 (4): 393-414.

National League of Cities: Sustainable Cities Institute http://www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org/topics/transportation

Nilsen, Thomas. 2017. Umeå paves the way for green electric bus revolution. The Independent Barents Observer. June 13. https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2017/06/umea-paves-way-green-electric-bus-revolution

Xylia, Maria, and Semida Silveira. 2017. On the road to fossil-free public transport: The case of Swedish bus fleets. Energy Policy 100 (January): 397-412.

The Ninth Congress of International Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS-IX)

June 12, 2017June 14, 2017UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Nearly 800 Arctic researchers representing dozens of countries and indigenous groups traveled to Umeå, Sweden, this week for the ninth meeting of the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS-IX). The conference, put on by the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA), included nearly 200 sessions, with three to five researchers presenting at each session. Topics ranged from Arctic security to environmental management policies to youth development to indigenous adaptations to climate change. The presenters included anthropologists, geographers, pathologists, historians, sociologists and others.

Many members of the Arctic PIRE team attended the conference and several presented their recent research.

Matt Berman presented his research on the “effects of resource development, sovereign wealth funds, and land claims settlements on poverty reduction in rural Alaska,” which demonstrates the significant impact of Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend distributions on poverty, and cautioned that the impact of diverting these funds to pay for state government operations will significantly increase poverty rates in rural Alaska.

Aileen Asperon Espiritu presented “Strategies of sustainability: long-term urban planning strategies in an Arctic city,” comparing planning strategies towards social and economic sustainability in three Arctic cities: Luleå, Sweden; Tromsø, Norway; and Rovaniemi, Finland.

Vera Kuklina presented her research on “The rhythms of trains and work along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM)” exploring the power of railroad rhythms on workers, families, and small businesses along the BAM, based on field work completed in Ust’-Kut, Severobaikalsk and Tynda in 2016.

Bob Orttung and Carrie Schaffner presented the preliminary work on the Arctic Urban Sustainability Index, including the parameters for defining and identifying Arctic cities, the draft indicators for measuring urban sustainability in the Arctic, and preliminary data on a representative sample of twelve Arctic cities.

Andrey Petrov chaired sessions on the current research on extractive industries and sustainability, and Arctic sustainabilities in the Anthropocene. Andrey was also elected as the new president of IASSA beginning in September of this year. Congratulations, Andrey!

Jim Powell’s presentation entitled, “Adaptive Governance: A comparison between two Alaskan and two Swedish Municipalities facing climate change,” highlighted the results of in-depth surveys that were conducted as part of a study that compares and contrasts adaptive approaches to governance in two municipalities in Alaska and two municipalities in Sweden.

Luis Suter’s presentation, “Tundra to Table: Vertical Farming and Food Security in the Arctic” examined the use of indoor farming in Alaska and other Arctic regions as a way to offset the high cost of shipping food and increase local food security. Luis explored some of the challenges and opportunities for this relatively new form of Arctic agriculture.

Nadezda Zamyatina shared her research on the idea of “remoteness” in Arctic cities, as a factor of Arctic cities’ development and mobility processes. Nadezda presented several theoretical points of view on remoteness, as well as possibilities for overcoming the challenge of remoteness through mobility, flexibility, and creativity.