PIRE: Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic

随着北极冰层的持续融化，越来越多的人类将进入高北地区，以开发当地资源并扩大交通联系。这种活动增加的结果将是在极端条件下加强城市发展。该项目的目的是促进北极地区更大的城市可持续性，从而使人类对更大环境的最终影响尽可能小。为了实现这一广泛的国际目标，国际研究与教育伙伴关系（PIRE）将汇集来自美国、加拿大、丹麦/格陵兰、挪威和俄罗斯的科学家。在北极各国以及在北极地区利益日益增长的其他欧亚国家之间发展强有力的合作，是确保有效管理北极地区未来发展的必要条件。美国将于2015年5月至2017年5月担任北极理事会主席，该委员会将通过提供衡量进展的工具、确定最迫切需要的领域、选择可验证的最佳实践、审查机会成本以及确定外部行为者在哪些方面可以产生最大影响，提高政策制定者促进可持续发展的能力。具体而言，该项目将制定一个北极城市可持续发展指数，这将有可能从多个重要方面评估该地区人类活动的后果。该指数将用于衡量各种北极城市的可持续性成果和实现这些成果的进展。该指数的关键因素将包括永久冻土融化、经济盛衰周期、农民工涌入以及由此导致的社会紧张局势加剧。我们的中心假设是：通过全面的规模和机制来衡量可持续发展的努力，并以指数的形式汇编结果，将引发改善城市规划的努力。这个项目将是一个多学科的项目，结合地理学、气候学、建筑学、设计学、社会学和政治学的分析工具。重要的是，该指数将不限于在北极使用。它可以有效地衡量其他极端气候条件下的可持续性，比如波斯湾新兴城市和亚利桑那州凤凰城等地。

AbstractArctic PIRE: Promoting Urban Sustainability in the ArcticAs Arctic ice continues to melt, humans will enter the high north in growing numbers to develop local resources and expand transportation links. The result of this increased activity will be intensified urban development in extreme conditions. The purpose of this project is to promote greater urban sustainability in the Arctic so that the ultimate human impact on the larger environment will be as small as possible. To achieve such a broad international goal, this Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) will bring together scientists from the U.S., Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Norway and Russia. Developing strong cooperation among the various Arctic countries, as well as other European and Asian countries with growing interests in the north, is necessary to ensure that future development in this polar region is managed effectively. With the U.S. chairing the Arctic Council from May 2015 to May 2017, this PIRE will improve the ability of policy-makers to promote sustainability by providing tools to measure progress, identify areas of most urgent need, select verifiable best practices, examine opportunity costs, and determine where external actors can have the greatest impact.Specifically, this project will develop an Arctic Urban Sustainability Index, which will make it possible to assess the consequences of human activities in the region across a number of important dimensions. The Index will be used to measure sustainability outcomes and progress toward achieving those outcomes in a wide variety of Arctic cities. Key elements of the index will include thawing permafrost, a boom-bust economic cycle, and an influx of migrant workers with the resulting increase in social tensions. Our central hypothesis posits that: Measuring sustainability efforts across the full range of scale and mechanisms and compiling the results in the form of an index will trigger efforts to improve urban planning. The project will be multi-disciplinary in nature, incorporating the analytical tools of geography, climatology, architecture, design, sociology, and political science. Importantly, the Index will not be limited to use in the Arctic. It could be effective in measuring sustainability in other extreme climate conditions, such as in the new cities rising in the Persian Gulf and in places like Phoenix, Arizona.