Alaska

A challenge for rural water infrastructure systems in the Arctic is how to operate, manage, and maintain them successfully. Operations, maintenance, and management (OMM) that ensures continuous water access is difficult in these remote areas for many reasons, such as limited access to technical resources and to training across a broad range of skills. Building local workforce capacity and training has been recommended to address this OMM gap.

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. This 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.

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.

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address converging scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. This 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.

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.

Snow and ice are essential parts of living in cold places, and all northern peoples observe, understand, and appreciate how these change every year. Wide-scale observations of freshwater ice and how its presence has changed over time will meet a fundamental need for a broad range of stakeholders, from rural communities that depend on ice for transportation and subsistence harvest, to industries that rely on winter water for ice road construction, to scientists studying climate change and ecosystem services.

Part 1: This continuation of the Indigenous Observing Network (ION) project (now ION 2.0) will be led by the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council (YRITWC) in partnership with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. ION 2.0 will continue measurement of water quality constituents and expand the observation and monitoring program to include measurements of changes in permafrost depth due to thawing of the active layer at numerous of the long-term water quality monitoring sites.

This award was made through the "Signals in the Soil (SitS)" solicitation, a collaborative partnership between the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA). Co-funding for this award is being provided by the Environmental Chemical Sciences (ECS) program in the Division of Chemistry, and the Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) program, one of NSF’s ten Big Ideas.

The National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) will use Indigenous approaches to transform graduate education programs in fields that tend to lack cultural diversity within academia as well as the workforce; fisheries and marine science.

Observations and modeling suggest the globe is standing on the inflection point of abrupt permafrost change. Increased methane emissions from newly formed lakes in melting permafrost regions likely play a major role in global climate. Reduction in permafrost and associated landscape change increasingly place Arctic and global communities at risk. Hence, improved forecasts for planning are critically needed.