1. Identify and quantify key drivers of biodiversity changes and their past and future trends.
2. Identify cascading effects of a changing biodiversity associated with ongoing and projected changes in Arctic coastal food webs.
3. Assess the interdependencies between environmental changes and Arctic coastal livelihoods.
4. Support adaptive co-management at the local and national levels.

FACE-IT rests on three overarching research approaches:

1. the comparison of fjords and adjacent coastal areas under different degrees of cryosphere loss
2. the integration of existing data through experimental research and modelling
3. an emphasis on coproduction of knowledge to develop and propose adaptive co-management strategies that can safeguard local coastal livelihoods in times of rapid change.

The project is led by University of Bremen (D), and includes Nordland Research Institute, Norwegian Polar Institute, Institute of Marine Research (N), Sorbonne University (F), Aarhus University (DK), Aalborg University (DK), Alfred Wegener Institute (D) and more. I lead a work package on tourism that has Isfjorden, Svalbard, and Disko Bay, Greenland, as cases.

Research Council of Norway (RCN), “Sustainable Tourism on Svalbard – a balancing act”, 2020-2024

This project will increase our knowledge of how the local tourism industry can create new opportunities as they respond to the ongoing transformative changes of Svalbard’s society and environment and contribute to the development of the analytical concepts of transformation and adaptation. The project is a collaboration between two key Svalbard tourism operators – Arctic Expedition Cruise Operator and Visit Svalbard – and research institutions Nordland Research Institute, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Western Norway Research Institute, Vetani, Sweden, Brown University, USA. I am WP leader and PI in this project.

RCN, Tourism Risks: A resilent low-carbon, high-yield tourism model for Norway (TourRisk), 2020-2024

The project focuses on two types of risks: The first category, referred to as carbon risks, pertains to the risks associated with tackling new costs related to mitigating carbon emissions, such as a new carbon tax or having to implement new and expensive technology to curb emissions. Tourism patterns may also be affected by changes in climate policies in Norway or abroad.

Another set of risks, climate change risks, pertains to tourism being affected by various consequences of climate change, such as a lack of snow or extreme weather events deterring tourists from visiting a destination. The approach other countries take to cutting emissions or adapting to climate change may also affect Norway.

The project’s main objective is to describe policies for Norway’s future tourism sector in light of the climate crisis the world is faced with. Ideally, the tourism sector of tomorrow should be resilient and able to withstand world events and crises better than today’s tourism sector, as well as becoming a low-emission and high-yield sector. The project has two cases: The world heritage site Nærøyfjord and Geirangerfjord; and Svalbard. Our main objective is understanding linkages between environmental and climatic change and tourism practices, and how tourism actors adapt to the ongoing changes. We will co-develop sustainability indicators tailored at Arctic tourism in collaborations with ecologists and zoologists and stakeholder partners.