Belmont Forum Collaborative Research: AWERRS Arctic Wetlands Ecosystems – Resilience through Restoration & Stewardship

University Of Alaska Southeast Juneau Campus, Juneau AK

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 9-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a consortium of research funding organizations representing over 55 countries focused on support for transdisciplinary approaches to global environmental change challenges and opportunities. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries. The research teams will address key areas of arctic resilience understanding and action. This collaboration of academic and non-academic knowledge systems constitutes a transdisciplinary approach that will advance not only understanding of the fundamentals of arctic resilience but also spur action, inform decision-making, and translate into solutions for resilience. The project seeks to address the challenge of building resilience in a rapidly changing Arctic by focusing on human activities that impact Arctic wetlands ecosystems. The project will support and help communities to strengthen their capacity to engage in wetlands restoration and stewardship. At a local scale, wetlands buffer heavy precipitation and snowmelt and filter and store water. They provide crucial habitat for biodiversity, providing nesting and breeding areas for migratory bird species and spawning areas for fish species. As such, they support traditional livelihoods activities including reindeer husbandry, hunting and fishing, other cultural and recreational activities, and tourism. Less widely known is that intact wetlands store a large amount of global carbon. While they make up only about 3% of the Earth's land area, wetlands store an estimated 20% of the worlds terrestrial carbon – the largest regional store of carbon on the planet. Identifying and testing approaches for strengthening the engagement of local communities and other actors in the restoration and stewardship of Arctic wetlands ecosystems helps increase community resilience though shared engagement - and through the ecosystem service benefits derived from improving wetlands ecosystems' resilience. 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.