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Seismic Resilience and Adaptation of Arctic Infrastructure and Social Systems amid Changing Climate
Arctic changes are accelerating environmentally, ecologically, and socially. Understanding how these changes interact and how they influence seismic response and consequences requires a holistic investigation that incorporates human impacts, natural systems, and built infrastructure.
The project team, including researchers from the University of New Hampshire and University of Alaska Fairbanks, worked towards building technical and community capacity to investigate the seismic resilience of Arctic systems. This included expert interviews and surveys, preliminary resilience models, community forums, and an international workshop. The 1st International Workshop was held in September 2021, in Anchorage, Alaska where about 50 participants including researchers from different disciplines, practitioners, and community stakeholders identified major community concerns and high priority research subjects needed to enhance Arctic seismic resiliency and climate adaptation. The top six climate-sensitive priorities are: (1) effects of permafrost thawing, changes of soil properties, and soil liquefaction, (2) cascading earthquake impacts such as seismically induced tsunamis and landslides, (3) the critical role of lifeline infrastructure redundancies, (4) building resilience capacity in small, local, and Indigenous communities, (5) distribution of resources across the Arctic, and (6) access inequality to information. Further, the workshop outcomes and future research plans were communicated to the community members of the Copper River area in Alaska.
The team, joined by researchers from Penn State University, University of Georgia, and University of Virginia, is currently collaborating on an NNA Arctic, Climate, and Earthquake (ACE) project to use system dynamics modeling, infrastructure monitoring, physical modeling, surveys and interviews with Indigenous communities and local perspectives, and community training and education to enhance the seismic resilience of Arctic systems in light of variable ground thermal states.
For more information, email Majid Ghayoomi, project PI, at Majid.Ghayoomi@unh.edu or visit the workshop website.
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