NNA Track 1: Collaborative Research: Resilience and adaptation to the effects of permafrost degradation induced coastal erosion

导航新北极（NNA）是美国国家科学基金会的十大构想之一。NNA项目解决快速变化的北极地区的融合科学挑战。北极研究需要为国家、更大地区和全球的经济、安全和复原力提供信息。NNA支持从地方到国际规模的新研究伙伴关系，使下一代北极研究人员多样化，并整合知识的共同生产。这个奖项部分实现了这一目标。北极地区的气温正在迅速上升，气温升高导致永久冻土（至少连续两年冻结的土地）变暖和融化。永久冻土海岸约占世界海岸线的30%，由于融化正在加速侵蚀。自2007年以来，一些地区的侵蚀速度已达到每年16米。永久冻土退化和相关的海岸侵蚀破坏了整个北极地区的沿海基础设施和设施，影响了北极地区居民的经济繁荣和生活。由于关键基础设施容易受到永久冻土退化和侵蚀的影响，居民被迫放弃家园，整个社区必须重新安置。这转移了其他关键需求的资源，扰乱了社会网络和生存实践。本研究通过分析北极部分地区自然环境、社会系统和建筑环境之间的相互作用，探讨了社会的适应能力，该地区由于永久冻土退化而发生海岸侵蚀。该项目与北极土著社区共同生产知识，并将与当地社区和公众分享研究成果，为决策提供信息。该项目通过让当地土著高中生参与实地数据收集，在当地社区举办研讨会，展示科学和工程如何改善社区福祉，并为学生和早期职业研究人员提供融合研究方面的培训和能力建设机会，促进了美国国家科学基金会（NSF）在全国范围内的“工程和科学中代表性不足的发现者的学习者社区”（INCLUDES）的倡议。该项目的目标是了解永久冻土退化与相关海岸侵蚀、民用基础设施和社区福祉（包括社会和文化复原力）之间的复杂关系。研究结果可以用来制定一个整体的预测模型，帮助社会系统和建筑环境适应该地区前所未有的环境变化。项目主要包括5项研究任务和相关研究成果：(1)建立高空间分辨率（130 m）的热模拟模型，以评估和预测未来100年冻土退化的速率、程度和机制；建立最大熵原理模型，以估计未来沿海和河流坡面侵蚀和热岩溶发育的速率；(2)建立受多年冻土退化和海岸侵蚀影响地区的基础设施危害图；(3)与北极土著社区共同生产知识，以确定和了解与永久冻土退化、海岸侵蚀和洪水有关的最紧迫问题，并收集和整合当地观察员对这些现象的长期观测资料；(4)建立了社区对永久冻土退化的社会人口复原力定量评估模型，展示了基础设施破坏对沿海社区社会复原力和适应能力的影响；(5)开发基于主体的模型（ABM），该模型可用于调整民用基础设施，并建立社区对未来永久冻土退化和海岸侵蚀的社会恢复力。该项目与阿拉斯加北坡区（NSB）沿海地区的社区合作，开发和验证模型，尽管结果对许多遭受永久冻土引起的海岸侵蚀的沿海社区有价值。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) is one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas. NNA projects address convergence scientific challenges in the rapidly changing Arctic. The Arctic research is needed to inform the economy, security and resilience of the Nation, the larger region and the globe. NNA empowers new research partnerships from local to international scales, diversifies the next generation of Arctic researchers, and integrates the co-production of knowledge. This award fulfills part of that aim. Temperatures in the Arctic are rising rapidly, and these warmer temperatures have caused permafrost, ground that remains frozen for at least two consecutive years, to warm and thaw. Permafrost coasts, which make up approximately 30% of the world's coastlines, are experiencing accelerated erosion due to thawing. Erosion at some locations has occurred at the rate of 16 m per year since 2007. Degradation of permafrost and related coastal erosion damages coastal infrastructure and facilities across the Arctic, impacting the economic prosperity and lives of its inhabitants. As critical infrastructure becomes vulnerable to permafrost degradation and erosion, residents are forced to abandon homes and entire communities must be relocated. This diverts resources from other critical needs and disrupts social networks and subsistence practices. This research addresses society's capacity to adapt by analyzing interactions among the natural environment, social systems, and the built environment, in a part of the Arctic where coastal erosion due to permafrost degradation is taking place. This project co-produces knowledge with Arctic indigenous communities and will share research outcomes to inform decision-making with local communities and the general public. The project promotes NSF's initiative of Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) by involving local indigenous high school students in the collection of field data, providing workshops in local communities demonstrating how science and engineering can improve community well-being, and provides students and early-career researchers with training and capacity-building opportunities in convergent research. The goal of this project is to understand the complex relationship between permafrost degradation and related coastal erosion, civil infrastructure, and community well-being, including social and cultural resilience. Results can be used to formulate a holistic and predictive model that aids adaptation of social systems and the built environment to the unprecedented environmental changes in the region. The project consists of five research tasks with related research products: (1) development of a thermal model with high spatial resolution (130 m) to evaluate and predict the rate, extent, and mechanisms of permafrost degradation in the next century and a maximum entropy principle model to estimate the future rate of coastal and river bluff erosion and thermokarst development; (2) creation of an infrastructure hazards map of the region experiencing the effects of permafrost degradation and coastal erosion; (3) co-production of knowledge with Arctic indigenous communities to identify and understand the most urgent issues relating to permafrost degradation and coastal erosion and flooding, as well as collecting and integrating local long-term observations of these phenomena by local observers; (4) development of a quantitative assessment model of sociodemographic resilience of communities to permafrost degradation, demonstrating the impacts of infrastructure disruptions on the social resilience and adaptation capacity of coastal communities; and (5) development of an agent-based model (ABM) that can be used to adapt civil infrastructure and build the social resilience of communities to future permafrost degradation and coastal erosion. The project works with communities along the coastal region of Alaska North Slope Borough (NSB) to develop and validate models, although results will be of value to many coastal communities experiencing permafrost-induced coastal erosion.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.