CNH-L: Adaptive Coupling of Human Environment Linkages in Response to Globally Driven Changes in Subsistence in Rural Alaska

积极和富有成效的生存生活方式对阿拉斯加农村社区的营养和文化至关重要，但气候变化和能源成本上升正在挑战农村居民开展生存活动的能力。气候变化将改变生态系统的结构和功能，影响生存资源的分配和进入资源收获区的机会。高燃料成本（例如，供暖、运输）迫使农村家庭作出经济牺牲，以维护和使用维持生计所需的设备。为了解决这些问题，该项目将：1）记录环境变化和能源成本对生存的具体影响，2）确定并联系人类的特征（例如，政策，家庭经济学）和自然（例如，（a）评估影响脆弱性的气候模式、地貌变化（包括气候变化、气候模式、地貌变化）系统的影响，（b）评估当前应对影响的有效性，（c）加强社区和研究人员之间的沟通网络，以促进未来对全球驱动的变化的适应。而不是考虑全球变化的适应作为一组离散的行动，这项研究将作为反馈回路，在社区和区域尺度上的社会和生态组件连接的行动，并将测试的假设，无效的适应全球变化的结果部分从弱或缺失的反馈。该项目涉及与当地社区以及阿拉斯加的联邦、州和部落组织合作，以开发和加强在区域和更大范围内发明、测试和分享适应性的网络。它将通过在跨学科研究过程中让社区领袖参与和培训研究生（其中许多是阿拉斯加土著人），提高阿拉斯加适应环境变化的能力。本项目由阿拉斯加原住民、女性、青年学者等14人组成，其中21%为女性，43%为青年学者。本项目将开发一个新的框架（适应性耦合）来研究社会生态系统中的适应性。它将在系统背景下整合脆弱性和复原力科学。它没有将全球变化适应视为一系列离散的行动，而是将这些行动视为在社区和区域范围内将社会生态组成部分联系起来的反馈回路。该项目将检验以下假设，即对全球变化的适应不力，部分原因是社区受到的影响对当地驱动因素或社区对这些驱动因素的敏感性的调节因素的反馈较弱或缺失。调查人员试图了解反馈薄弱或缺失的原因。该研究将通过将社会科学的定性见解（特别是与政治生态学和适应和协作能力有关的见解）与系统框架内的生态学，水文学和经济学的更多定量信息相结合，为理论做出贡献。将研究从单个社区到一个区域的适应规模的动态和途径。与从机构到地方实体的自上而下的创新扩散文献相反，调查人员将重点关注基层出现的新奇和影响其区域扩散的因素。注重知识在当地社区的理论和实际应用之间的接口，有可能将西方的线性（装卸码头）科学模式转变为一种更加迭代的适应性方法，承认当地知识的知识价值和作为学习实验室的现实世界应用的重要性。

An active and productive subsistence lifestyle is nutritionally and culturally critical to rural communities in Alaska, yet changes in climate and rising energy costs are challenging rural residents' ability to conduct subsistence activities. Changes in climate will alter ecosystem structure and function, affecting the distribution of subsistence resources and access to the areas where resources are harvested. High fuel costs (e.g., heating, transportation) have forced rural households to make economic sacrifices to maintain and use equipment needed for subsistence. To address these issues, this project will: 1) document specific impacts that environmental change and energy costs are having on subsistence, 2) identify and link characteristics of the human (e.g., policy, household economics) and natural (e.g., climate patterns, landscape change) system that influence vulnerability to impacts, 3) evaluate the effectiveness of current responses to impacts, and 4) enhance communication networks among communities and researchers to foster future adaptation to globally-driven changes. Rather than considering global-change adaptation as a set of discrete actions, this research will treat actions as feedback loops that link social and ecological components at community and regional scales and will test the hypothesis that ineffective adaptation to global change results in part from weak or missing feedbacks. The project involves collaboration with local communities as well as with federal, state, and tribal organizations in Alaska to develop and enhance networks that invent, test, and share adaptations at regional and larger scales. It will enhance capacity to adapt to environmental change in Alaska by engaging community leaders and training graduate students, many of whom are Alaska Natives, in an interdisciplinary research process. Of the 14-member project team, 21% are Alaska Native, 50% are women, and 43% are early-career scholars.This project will develop a novel framework (adaptive coupling) to study adaptation in social-ecological systems. It will integrates vulnerability and resilience science in a systems context. Rather than considering global-change adaptation as a set of discrete actions, it treats these as feedback loops that link social-ecological components at community and regional scales. The project will test the hypothesis that ineffective adaptation to global change results in part from weak or missing feedbacks from impacts on communities back to the local drivers or factors mediating community sensitivity to these drivers. The investigators seek to understand reasons for weak or missing feedbacks. The research will contribute to theory by integrating qualitative insights from the social sciences (especially related to political ecology and adaptive and collaborative capacities) with more quantitative information from ecology, hydrology, and economics within a systems framework. The dynamics and pathways by which adaptation scales from individual communities to a region will be investigated. In contrast to the literature on top-down diffusion of innovation from agencies to local entities, the investigators will focus on the grassroots emergence of novelty and factors that influence its regional diffusion. The focus on the interface between theory and practical application of knowledge in local communities has the potential to transform the western linear (loading dock) model of science to a more iterative adaptive approach that recognizes the intellectual value of local knowledge and the importance of real-world application as a learning laboratory.