UVA’s Environmental Institute announces the third Climate Collaborative, expanding work in Arctic cities to find solutions to snow management.

Long-term solutions to climate challenges are more likely to be impactful, sustainable, and equitable if community members have a voice in the process. In fact, sometimes residents in the communities where research is performed bring local knowledge to form questions researchers didn’t anticipate. This is how the Arctic Cities team at UVA has become the third Climate Collaborative at the Environmental Institute.  

Through the Climate Collaboratives program, UVA catalyzes a research model where community members are fully integrated in the questions and outcomes from the start. The first two Climate Collaboratives were announced in 2023, the third Climate Collaborative announced this fall goes to a team that proposes solutions to snow management effects on permafrost (year-round frozen ground) and the stability of infrastructure in Arctic communities.

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researchers work at a station
A team of UVA researchers has been awarded a Climate Collaborative to expand their work in the Arctic cities. (Photo contributed.)

UVA researchers have been active in the Arctic for years. Referred to as the “Arctic Cities”  team, the project was seed-funded by UVA’s Environmental Institute and the UVA Center for Global Inquiry & Innovation, which resulted in a $3 million award from the National Science Foundation. The multidisciplinary group includes Howard Epstein from the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Environmental Sciences, Leena Cho and Matthew Jull from the School of Architecture, and Caitlin Donahue Wylie from the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

While the Arctic Cities team has been working alongside community members for years to produce solutions to climate-related problems unique to the Arctic, they learned of a pressing research problem that hadn’t yet been grappled with - what to do with snow in a changing climate.

The Arctic is warming faster at present than any other region on Earth.  Air temperatures have increased up to four times more rapidly in the Arctic than the global average, leading to reduced sea ice, warmer ground conditions, thawing permafrost, and overall increasing instability of the land surface. This has major impacts on the infrastructure of Arctic cities and villages, Indigenous communities, and the traditional cultures and livelihoods of their populations. 

Infrastructure and management within Arctic communities change the distribution and dynamics of snow and surface water. Since snow has an insulating effect ground instability is affected by snow management and surface water distribution. This new project will work with community members to understand how existing snow practices and surrounding infrastructure affect permafrost stability, and how to manage these systems in ways that better ensure a resilient Arctic.

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Photo of snowmelt in the Arctic
Snow management and standing surface water have become problems that researchers have been asked to address in the face of warming temperatures in the Arctic. (Photo contributed.)

“Our interdisciplinary team of environmental scientists, architects, and social scientists is working directly with community partners in Utqiaġvik, Alaska to examine how their infrastructure affects permafrost conditions and water quality,” said Epstein, “which then feedback to influence the livelihoods of residents.”

“One key aspect of the environment in Utqiaġvik that we were not studying within our NSF project and was noted as a crucial issue by community residents is snow.  Snow is very unevenly distributed throughout the city, and it affects permafrost stability and meltwater management,” Epstein continued. “As a Climate Collaborative, we will be able to add members to our core team with expertise in snow and surface water hydrology to focus on how snow can be managed in ways that make infrastructure and ecosystems most resilient in Utqiaġvik.  While our work focuses on Utqiaġvik, the findings are highly relevant for other Arctic communities.”

Working with partner organizations such as TRIBN, Inc., Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (“CRREL”), and the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation, this Climate Collaborative team will answer what design, planning, and maintenance strategies can be developed for Arctic communities to address the management of snow and water while also promoting ecological and cultural vitality.

“The Institute seed funded this project as a CoLab back in 2018 and to watch how community members have engaged and provided invaluable input has been inspirational,” said Karen McGlathery, Director of the Environmental Institute. “Through the large NSF grant this team received, this work has already added to our knowledge of what can be done to address climate change in Arctic cities. To see the outcomes of that work and to know there is more to learn alongside community partners about promoting Arctic resilience in the face of climate change is truly what moving research to action is about.”