2008 Annual Meeting and Arctic Forum | Abstracts

Cumulative Impact Analysis on the Yamal Peninsula, Russia: A Blueprint for a Comparative Study in Northern Alaska?

Donald (Skip) A. Walker¹, Bruce C. Forbes², Florian Stammler³, Timo Kumpula⁴, Anatoli Gubarkov⁵, Elina Karlejaarvi⁶, Uma Bhatt⁷, Gary Kofinas⁸, Martha Raynolds⁹, Vladimir Romanovsky¹⁰, Patrick Kuss¹¹, Marina Leibman¹², Natalia Moskalenko¹³, Artem Khomutov¹⁴, George Matyshak¹⁵, Howie Epstein¹⁶, Qin Yu¹⁷, Jiong Jia¹⁸, Joey Comiso¹⁹, Jed Kaplan^20
1Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK, 99775-7000, USA, Phone 907-474-2460, Fax 907-474-2459, ffdaw@uaf.edu
²Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, PO Box 122, Rovaniemi, FIN-96101, Finland, Phone +358-16341-2710, Fax +358-16341-2777, bforbes@ulapland.fi
³Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, PO Box 122, Rovaniemi, FIN-96101, Finland, Phone +358-16-341-271, Fax +358-16-341-277, florian.stammler@ulapland.fi
⁴Department of Geography, University of Joensuu, PO Box 111, Joensuu, FI-80101, Finland, Phone +358-0-13-251-4, timo.kumpula@joensuu.fi
⁵Tyumen State Oil and Gas University, Tyumen, Russia, agubarkov@mail.ru
⁶Earth Cryosphere Laboratory, Moscow, Russia
⁷Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757320, Fairbanks, AK, 99709-7340, USA, Phone 907-474-2662, Fax 907-474-7290, bhatt@gi.alaska.edu
⁸Department of Resources Management and Institute of Arctic B, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK, 99709-7000, USA, Phone 907-474-7078, Fax 907-474-6967, ffgpk@uaf.edu
⁹Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK, 99709, USA, Phone 907-474-6720, Fax 907-474-6967, fnmkr@uaf.edu
¹⁰Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757320, Fairbanks, AK, 99775-7320, USA, Phone 907-474-7459, Fax 907-474-7290, ffver@uaf.edu
¹¹Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757000, Fairbanks , AK, 99775-7000, USA, Phone 907-474-2459, Fax 907-474-7666, patrick.kuss@unibas.ch
¹²Earth Cryosphere Laboratory, Moscow, Russia, Phone +7-95135-9828, mleibman@online.ru
¹³Earth Cryosphere Laboratory, Vavilov Street 30/6, Moscow, 117982, Russia
¹⁴Earth Cryosphere Laboratory, Moscow, Russia
¹⁵Earth Cryosphere Laboratory, Moscow, Russia
¹⁶Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, PO Box 400123, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4123, USA, Phone 434-924-4308, Fax 434-982-2137, hee2b@virginia.edu
¹⁷Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, 291 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA, Phone 434-924-0576, qinyu@virginia.edu
¹⁸TEA Institute of Atmospheric Physics, 40 Hua Yan Li, PO Box 9804, Bejing, 100029, China, jiong@tea.ac.cn
¹⁹Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Greenbelt, MA, 20771, USA, Phone 301-614-5708, Fax 301-614-5644, comiso@joey.gsfc.nasa.gov
²⁰Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Bern, Switzerland, jed.kaplan@ips.unibe.ch

Oil and gas activities over the past 30+ years have had profound effects on the social-ecological systems of the Yamal region of Russia and northern Alaska. Both regions are also undergoing rapid climate warming, with important ramifications for tundra vegetation and permafrost soils. Russian, and Finnish scientists are studying the terrain, permafrost, and socio-ecological impacts of development on the Yamal Peninsula, and are collaborating with US scientists, who are primarily examining the climate-related impacts to the vegetation and how these are related to the changing sea-ice concentrations and are employing state-of-the-art vegetation change models to predict the combined effects of land-cover changes due to altered climate and industrial development.

Here we summarize some of the recorded effects in the Yamal region of industrial development, the role of terrain sensitivity, reindeer herding, and climate change. Our aim is the co-production of knowledge relevant to assessing the overall cumulative effects — both positive and negative — from past resource exploration and from climate change. We point the way to a comparative study of cumulative effects in North America that would draw on the different lessons learned in both regions, with a goal of collaborating intensively with the local people to develop tools to better predict the cumulative effects of resource development and climate change in these and other regions of the Arctic.