Prepublication Available
State of the Arctic Coast 2010
For more information and to access the draft report, go to:
http://arcticcoasts.org
To submit comments and questions, please email:
info [at] arcticcoasts.org
The prepublication of the State of the Arctic Coast 2010 report is
available at: http://arcticcoasts.org. As the report is in draft format,
it should not be cited or quoted.
The arctic coastal interface is a sensitive and important zone of
interaction between land and sea; a region that provides essential
ecosystem services and supports indigenous human lifestyles; a zone of
expanding infrastructure investment and growing security concerns; and
an area in which climate warming is expected to trigger landscape
instability, rapid responses to change, and increased hazard exposure.
Starting with a collaborative workshop hosted by the Norwegian Institute
for Air Research in October 2007, the International Arctic Science
Committee (IASC), the Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone
(LOICZ) Project and the International Permafrost Association (IPA)
decided to jointly initiate an assessment of the state of the arctic
coast.
The goal of this report is to draw on initial findings regarding climate
change and human dimensions for the Arctic as a whole, provided by the
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and the Arctic Human Development
Report (AHDR), to develop a comprehensive picture of the status and
current and anticipated changes in the most sensitive arctic coastal
areas. Adopting a social ecological system perspective the report
considers the implications of change for the interaction of humans with
natural coastal systems. The report is intended as a first step towards
a continuously updated coastal assessment and aims to identify key
issues requiring future scientific attention in an international Earth
system research agenda.
The draft report is the outcome of this collaborative effort and starts
with a thematic review of the state of physical and ecological systems
and human communities and activities on the arctic coast as of 2010. It
then moves to a more holistic and coupled-system perspective to identify
knowledge gaps and future research needs. Current knowledge presented
and synthesized is based on published literature and other sources.
The document was prepared by an international writing team, including 15
Lead Authors and 27 Contributing Authors. The draft report was released
during the IPY Oslo Science Conference, 8-12 June 2010. The whole report
will soon be available for a two-month public review during
August-September with the objective to publish the final version early
in 2011. Instructions for submitting review comments will be posted
along with the full draft report by the end of July.
General Editor:
Donald L. Forbes
Email: dforbes [at] nrcan.gc.ca
Editorial Board:
Hugues Lantuit
Email: Hugues.Lantuit [at] awi.de
Volker Rachold
Email: Volker.Rachold [at] iasc.info
Hartwig Kremer
Email: hartwig.kremer [at] loicz.org
For more information and to access the report, see:
http://arcticcoasts.org.
To submit comments and questions, please email:
info [at] arcticcoasts.org.