Download SES Research in Alaska Comparing marine mammal co

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 crossscale 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 and how it brings resilience to
rural communities during a time of rapid change, such as oil/gas development and climate change. The
social-ecological system I am primarily interested in is the North Slope region of Alaska and I would like
to link this regional system to resilience theory.
Marcy Okada
Historic resource study of the region encompassing Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Noatak
National Preserve and Kobuk Valley National Park: an historical narrative focusing on cultural resources
including land 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 fit of four existing programmatic
responses to community needs and norms in a diversity of social-ecological systems in rural Alaska.
Becky Warren
- Potential of Nushagak Bay Tidal Power: a study of the tidal energy potential for the Nushagak Bay
fishing industry.
- Baseline Water Quality of Nushagak Bay: Summer monitoring program for water quality in Nushagak
Bay including intensive sampling of Squaw Creek in Dillingham.
- Biodiversity of Nushagak Bay: documenting benthic habitats of the Nushagak 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 in environmental science field methods.
- Bristol Bay Sustainable Energy Program: Promoting energy conservation for rural businesses via
technical assistance for public and tribal facilities
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 for battle.” To increase
engagement of Alaska Native people in the competitive realm of research requires continuing efforts to
develop behaviors of research activity among capable young scholars. Project ALANSO uses the Theory
of Planned Behavioras a framework for targeted tools designed to increase the desired behavior (engage
in research activities).
Tool #1. We're developing cognitive behavioral resources (Counselor's portfolio) 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 digital media (DVD in production
now with Moving Images)to be bundled with print elements 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 be placed 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