Climate Change Adaptation in High Latitude Rural Development Planning

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。偏远农村地区的经济发展是全世界面临的一项挑战，但在高纬度地区，偏远加上气候变化的早期可测量影响，使这一挑战更加艰巨。 为了了解当地社区如何适应其附近地区气候变化的早期影响，该项目将比较经济和社会指标数据，并将对俄罗斯西北部、芬兰、瑞典和挪威北纬65度以上的71个城市的市政规划者进行调查。 关于气候变化经验和问题的数据或这些经验带来的机会将与城市适应战略和计划进行比较，作为其经济和社区发展方案的一部分。 气候变化和适应数据将与一系列城市的经济和人口统计措施和趋势进行比较，以了解它们在适应方法上的差异以及如何与城市之间的发展水平进行比较。 预计各国在发展和适应方面的做法将因国家和发展水平而异。 预计气候变化可能会给当地带来好处和问题，这些在研究中将是重要的。 了解当地领导人如何看待气候变化的这些影响，以及他们如何看待机遇和问题，可以帮助低纬度其他农村地区了解可能以类似或不同方式影响其经济和发展潜力的变化，并为此做好准备。 该项目将建立一个比较数据库，以衡量经济增长、人力和自然资源禀赋、地点特点和地方发展努力，并建立经济发展变化与这些因素之间的关系模型。 研究小组预计，气候变化适应和地方发展战略将侧重于区位优势、传统产业和/或人力和自然资源优势，这些战略将与最积极的经济增长措施相关联。 他们还期望已经处理气候变化问题的市政当局取得更大成功，并考虑到气候变化影响带来的积极和消极的可能性。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Economic development in remote rural regions is a challenge throughout the world, but in high latitude areas, remoteness is joined by early measurable effects of climate change to make this challenge even greater. To learn how local communities are adapting to the early effects of climate change in their vicinity, this project will compare data on economic and social indicators and will conduct a survey of municipal planners in 71 municipalities above 65N in northwest Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Data on climate change experiences and problems or opportunities resulting from these experiences will be compared to municipal adaptation strategies and plans as part of their economic and community development programs. The climate change and adaptation data will be compared to economic and demographic measures and trends across the set of municipalities to understand how they vary in their approach to adaptation and how this compares to levels of development among the municipalities. Municipalities are expected to vary in their approach to development and adaptation, both across countries and by level of development. It is also expected that climate change may bring advantages as well as problems to local areas and these will be important in the study. Understanding how these effects of climate change are viewed by the local leaders and how they view both opportunities and problems can help other rural regions in lower latitudes understand and prepare for changes that may affect their economies and their development potential in similar or different ways. The project will build a comparative database for measuring economic growth, human and natural resource endowments, location characteristics, and local development efforts, and to model change in economic development as a function of these factors. The research team expects climate change adaptation and local development strategies to focus on location advantages, traditional industries, and/or human and natural resource advantages, and that these strategies will be associated with the most positive economic growth measures. They also expect municipalities that have addressed climate change issues to be more successful and to have considered both positive and negative possibilities resulting from climate change effects.