Collaborative Research: Water, Energy, and Food Security in the North: Synergies, tradeoffs, and building community capacity for sustainable futures (Sustainable Futures North)

北方可持续未来项目解决的问题是，在北美北极的粮食安全、水安全、能源安全和资源开发等相关目标之间是否可以找到协同增效作用。从历史上看，在这些领域中的一个或多个领域的开发在其他领域存在权衡；例如，石油勘探和开发往往与对传统生存物种和做法的负面影响有关。同样，阿拉斯加州布里斯托尔湾地区的居民目前也卷入了一场关于开发铜金矿的风险和好处的辩论，这座铜矿和金矿表面上将提供就业机会和经济发展机会，而这座铜矿位于一个支撑着世界上最大的红鲑鱼产量的分水岭的源头。着眼于引出社区发展和资源管理的最佳实践，着眼于协同而不是取舍，研究团队计划将北方三个地区的水、食品和能源系统的综合区域评估结合起来：布里斯托尔湾(阿拉斯加)、巴芬岛(加拿大)和科策布湾(阿拉斯加)，在这些地区，人们和社区共同面临与气候变化、社会经济变化和工业发展有关的各种挑战。构成该项目跨学科工具包的研究方法包括关键线人访谈、二级数据集的整合和分析、气候变化缩小尺度、工程最佳做法和差距分析以及城乡网络分析。研究小组将把这些定性和定量的研究方法联系起来，探索发展活动与社会和环境变化之间的因果关系，并将社会和生态数据集与气候变化情景相结合，以预测未来社区对气候和环境变化的反应。这项研究的结果将为一个合作的教育和推广计划提供参考，该计划旨在通过劳动力发展、STEM实习以及环境管理和工程方面的大专课程和计划来建设能力。

The Sustainable Futures North project addresses the question of whether synergies can be found among the related goals of food security, water security, energy security, and resource development in the North American Arctic. Historically, development in one or more of these areas has presented trade-offs in others; for example, petroleum exploration and development is often associated with negative impacts on traditional subsistence species and practices. Similarly, residents of the Bristol Bay region of Alaska are currently embroiled in a debate over the risks and benefits of developing of a copper and gold mine, which would ostensibly provide jobs and economic development opportunities, at the headwaters of a watershed that supports the world's largest sockeye salmon run. With an eye toward eliciting best practices for community development and resource management that target synergies rather than trade-offs, the research team plans to combine integrated regional assessments of water, food, and energy systems in three regions of the North: Bristol Bay (Alaska), Baffin Island (Canada), and Kotzebue Sound (Alaska), where people and communities share a variety of challenges relating to climate change, socioeconomic change, and industrial development. The research methods that make up the project's interdisciplinary toolkit include key informant interviews, integration and analysis of secondary datasets, climate change downscaling, engineering best practice and gap analysis, and rural-urban network analysis. The research team will link these qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore cause-and-effect relationships between development activities and societal and environmental changes, and will integrate social and ecological datasets with climate change scenarios to project future community responses to climatic and environmental change. The findings of this research will inform a collaborative education and outreach program designed to build capacity through workforce development, STEM internships, and post-secondary curricula and programs in environmental management and engineering.