Science for building resilience and adaptation Kim Jochum Lilian Alessa Andrew Kliskey Mark Ferrell

Overview Long-term projects and concepts Water as a resilience factor Wildlife as a resilience factor

Integrated coupled social-ecological modeling incorporating agent-based modeling - Forecasting Environmental Resilience of Arctic Landscapes (FERAL)

Tools for vulnerability assessment by Alaskan communities - AWRVI

Developing explanatory models for community resilience Technology induced environmental distancing (TIED) Source: Alessa, Kliskey, Williams. Polar Geography, 2007.

Water as a resilience factor Wales Alaska, 2008 Developing social science for understanding community response to change …

Perception of change in water resources varies with age cohort Source: Alessa, Kliskey, Williams & Barton. Global Environmental Change

Values toward water vary with age cohort Source: Alessa, Kliskey, Williams. Society & Natural Resources

Social-Ecological Relationships between Anchorage residents Water Quality and Quantity

Approach A community’s resilience to change is dependent on their ability to perceive a change in an environment Water resources are an important component of the environment, and subject to environmental changes Answering questions concerning individual’s understanding of social and ecological relationships within the Anchorage watershed Surveying of the public

Key Results 75.8 % - no change in water quality and quantity 68.9% - no difference in Campbell creek quality and quantity Women perceive more change in creek water quantities The higher the education level the greater the ability to perceive change

Chester Creek Waterway Do you see a problem with this waterway? Some respondents said there were “no issues with Chester Creek”

Wildlife as a resilience factor Confronting bear management in the changing North

Why do Human-Bear Encounters not decrease ? Worldwide issue Worldwide issue Management interest Management interest lack of knowledge about triggering factors Additional: Additional: unknown population sizes unknown population sizes hunting licence estimations hunting licence estimations Sustainable populations?

Possible triggering factors Urbanisation Urbanisation Human Footprint Human Footprint Access to Resources Access to Resources Economy Population Ecosystem Complex system (

Research Questions How are inhabitants perceptions and awareness towards human-bear encounters? How did urbanisation develop in relation to human-bear encounters? How did and does the human land-use influence human-bear encounters?

Study areas – Pacific Rim Sakhalin Island, Sakhalin Island, Russian Far East Alaska, USA Alaska, USA

Remote Sensing - supervised classification of land use change for Yushno and Anchorage regions over 30 years Modeling - Predicting suitable brown bear habitat on Sakhalin and in Alaska brown bear habitat model Social Science - Mixed Methods approach: semi-structured interviews and structured explanatory survey geo-referenced human-bear encounters database & human use of landscapes people’s perceptions and their change in perceptions towards brown bears evaluation of geo-referenced human-bear encounters in relation to urbanization Improve resilience and adaptiveness of brown bear management in Alaska and on Sakhalin Project Overview

Remote Sensing Stage Classification trials Non-Random 1989 classified image: Blue – water Green – forest Red – urban Yellow - agriculture Light blue – grassland

Interviews: Perceptions and Experiences towards bear management 23 Interviews on Sakhalin and in Alaska Currently analyzed Survey: Human-bear encounters & land-use over 30 years awaiting IRB approval Online and in the field Match existing Governmental and Agency data Social Science Stage

Acknowledgements Alaska EPSCoR Sakhalin Environment Watch (SEW) Institute of Marine Geology & Geophysics, Yushno Sakhalin Pacific Institute of Geography, Vladivostok SILVIS lab, University of Wisconsin Madison The Research Council of Norway