Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

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Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents Area

change, and descriptions of the drivers of change for different sectors, locations, and the region at large.The previous sections of Chapter 6 analyze the current knowledge on impacts and consequences for different systems (see Figure 6.7 for an example on the sources of impact and biological responses in marine ecosystems associated with offshore oil and gas activity). Importantly, discussion of these impacts and consequences does not include the effects of potential adaptation measures. This section builds on information from the earlier chapters by beginning to examine the changes and needs for specific sectors or locations that can inform the discussions of potential adaptation actions that appear in the following chapters. The aim of this section is therefore to describe a methodology for how to identify the drivers and consequences that may require adaption actions.This type of analysis will always include some level of uncertainty, but it does provide important input into decision making where uncertainty is a norm (Chapter 8, and Sections 9.4 and 10.3.3). The methodology described here examines a particular sector, region, or location and assesses the impacts and consequences from various drivers of change in a step-by-step approach. While the concepts of drivers, impacts, and consequences are difficult to distinguish clearly (see Chapter 1 for use of this terminology), organizing the information in this way makes it easier to visualize the linkages between the different drivers of change, and to understand how they reinforce or counteract each other. Finally, by aggregating the results it is possible to identify the cumulative impacts and their consequences across sectors and areas of concern. The first step is to identify the high-level drivers.These may all play a role, but do not necessarily have the same impact: any one driver may be more important and have a greater weight than another, depending on the sector, context and time scale for analysis (e.g. 2030, 2050, 2100). In addition, sectors (such as forestry) that are changing as a result of several drivers (such as climate change, technology) may themselves become a second order driver of impacts in other areas or on other sectors. The previous chapters show there is a range of concerns and perspectives for the various sectors (see also Chapter 9).Chapter 4 highlighted the main drivers of change in the Barents area, but without weighting or priority ranking.In Chapter 5,stakeholder and expert groups identified sets of high-level drivers of change as affecting their livelihoods and lifestyles within the Barents Region – identifying and ranking drivers and issues at the local level.The list of drivers determined through a series of workshops (Section 5.4.1) was slightly modified for the analysis presented here, combining the ‘recurring themes’ identified in Chapter 5 with the original list of main shared SSP (shared socioeconomic pathway) elements by O’Neill et al. (2017). The resulting list of drivers,presented in Table 6.1,shows how the seven drivers were ranked differently according to their importance and uncertainty by local stakeholders (Barents area locals) and experts. The impact and consequence analysis performed (see Section 6.4.3 for forestry example), uses the average weights of these stakeholder and expert opinions (final column of Table 6.1). 6.4.2 Methodology for analyzing drivers, impacts, and consequences of change

ore, timber, phosphate, semi-precious stones, and bauxite) will continue to be shipped through the Barents area for a long time to come (Bambulyak et al.,2012).The exception will be shipping of coal from Svalbard where drastically declining prices of coal on the world market will end coal mining there. Svalbard will reposition to increase the use of the Northeast Passage by improving its port facilities in Longyearbyen, improving Arctic search and rescue capabilities and expanding the tourist industry to the islands (Multiconsult, 2014). The tourist industry will become more important to the shipping industry. For example, from 2013 to 2014 cruise traffic in northern Norway increased by 10%. At the same time, it dropped slightly for Norway as a whole (Norwegian Ministry of ForeignAffairs, 2014).These operations are now expanding to include more of the Barents Region and annual growth for the Arctic cruise segment is high. However, of all cruise vessels in the world, only 13.2% are ice class. This leads to increasing risk of interaction with ice, especially free-floating ice. Risk of grounding is another issue because charting all relevant ocean areas in the Arctic could take up to 40 years (Eger and Kristiansen, 2011). In the meantime, the growth in regional shipping activity could cause a significant increase in marine incidents, including sinking, grounding, and pollution. Search and rescue capabilities are struggling to keep up with increased shipping activities. The Norwegian Coast Guard continues to play an important role in securing the safety of shipping.The Russian authorities have investedRUB 910million in the development of ten search and rescue centers along the Northeast Passage (Petersen, 2011).Nevertheless,many experts consider that much more is needed to create a reasonably safe operational region (Østreng et al., 2013). The Arctic is experiencing major changes in the level and types of human activity and presence, in climate and in its ecosystems (Chapter 4 and Sections 6.2 and 6.3). Increasing interactions between natural changes within the Earth system and growing pressure fromhumans as drivers of change have reached the point where changes that affect the entire globe are increasingly linked to environmental and societal changes that are specific to the regional and local level. It is increasingly clear that different systems and changes are interconnected; such as changes in the regional climate system, changes in biodiversity and ocean acidification (Section 6.2). In addition to interlinkage within and between the physical systems, societal and environmental conditions are also closely and inextricably linked,and are often described as coupled social-ecological systems.The different types of factor or stressor combine to create cumulative and cascading effects for society. The consequences of multiple stressors on key economic sectors and services can be considered as risks for business-as-usual,but can also represent new economic opportunities (Section 6.3). The preceding chapters and sections set the scene for this section and the following chapters. Chapters 1-5 present the background and current status for the region, the context of 6.4 Linkages and cumulative impacts 6.4.1 Connecting drivers of change to adaptation actions