Increasingly subsistence harvesters within the above domain have expressed concern that changes in the environment are influencing their ability to move across landscapes and access traditional…

This is a $735,357.58 cooperative agreement awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) to conduct research on environmental disturbances that impact subsistence harvesting and human access to traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering areas in rural Alaska. The research objectives include collaborating with local subsistence harvesters to map travel networks and document traditional ecological knowledge, assessing the biophysical characteristics and mechanisms of ecosystem disturbances, and using integrated modeling to estimate the spatial and temporal extent of these disturbances. This project aims to advance understanding of human interactions with ecosystem changes and provide insights to help prioritize future research on the availability and change of ecosystem services. The contract does not have a set-aside designation, reflecting UAF's status as a public university with extensive expertise in Arctic and sub-Arctic studies.

Increasingly subsistence harvesters within the above domain have expressed concern that changes in the environment are influencing their ability to move across landscapes and access traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering areas. Few data have been collected on the biophysical characteristics and mechanisms of environmental disturbances influencing both human movement across landscapes and access to subsistence resources. In addition, the prevalence and spatial temporal characteristics of subsistencealtering disturbances have not been quantified at a regional level. Approaches integrating participatory research, field data, remote sensing, and modeling are needed to analyze and interpret data on these consequential ecosystem dynamics. Our objectives are to 1 collaborate with subsistence harvesters to map travel networks and locate sites of ecosystem disturbances influencing access to subsistence resources in boreal alaska 2 document traditional ecological knowledge on the relationships among environmental change, disturbance sites, and access to subsistence resources 3 document biophysical characteristics and the underlying mechanisms related to ecosystem disturbances identified by subsistence harvesters 4 use integrated modeling to expand the sample size of disturbance observations and determine spatial and temporal extent frequency, duration, area, severity of influential disturbances and 5 estimate uncertainty and error associated with generalizing findings beyond data-collection area. We will collaborate with tribal organizations in 6 communities to recruit subsistence harvesters into a participatory research program. Using camera equipped GPS units, harvesters will be asked to mark and photograph environmental disturbances influencing their access to subsistence resources for one calendar year. We will conduct semi structured ethnographic interviews to document local perceptions of the prevalence, causes, and effects of disturbances identified. We will conduct field based assessments of disturbance sites to document biophysical characteristics and quantify descriptive metrics that will facilitate identification of mechanisms causing disturbances. After we have mapped disturbances, we will use remote-sensing imagery e.g., landsat TM scenes, aerial photography relevant to the study area to evaluate disturbances identified on the ground. Based on relationships among field, remote sensing, and disturbance variables, we will model travel networks and levels of access related disturbances beyond our study area. Our phase i efforts will generate spatially and temporally explicit maps and models of human access to subsistence resources and an index of the extent of environmental disturbances influencing human movement in rural landscapes. Our research will quantify with uncertainty how interactions among environmental changes influence landscape connectivity between humans and provisional cultural ecosystem services. Data collected and analyzed on ecosystem dynamics associated with subsistence altering disturbances will facilitate phase II efforts that assess the societal impact of and response i.e., adaptation to disturbances. Phase III will include scenario modeling to project the trajectory of future changes and the consequences of those changes. Our research will advance knowledge on human interaction with ecosystem change above primary motivation. Our research also can contribute to other above projects by providing researchers with a direct connection to communities which may facilitate a better understanding of societal consequences of project findings. Lastly, our spatially explicit findings may help prioritize phase II areas for investigation of availability and change in ecosystem services.