Adaptive management of climate sensitive natural resources in a changing Arctic

Arctic ecosystems are transformed by ongoing climate change. The management of these moving targets to sustain food security, health and welfare for local people requires iterative evaluations of management goals and practices. Adaptive ecosystem management aims for iterative decision-making processes that include stakeholders and a regularly updated knowledge base.

Near-term prediction models are increasingly used to provide quantitative basis for environmental decision-making. Deriving such forecasts as part of the adaptive ecosystem management process demands quantitatively trained ecologists. In addition, ecologists need to learn interacting with stakeholder groups and a set of tools that lead to structured development of objectives, decisions regarding monitoring targets and potential management actions.

This PhD project will focus on three case studies that target three essential, managed terrestrial ecosystem services in northern Fennoscandia: game populations, herds of semi-domestic reindeer, and boreal forest stands. The three cases require the development and analyses of structurally different ecosystem-based prediction models. Hence, the PhD project will obtain a comprehensive, analytical competence regarding ecological forecasting. Moreover, the PhD project will give the candidate a broad understanding of decision processes because stakeholders, management objectives and options will differ substantially between the cases. 

The position is associated to the Climate-Ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra (www.coat.no). COAT is a research Centre led by UiT, aiming to unravel how climate change impacts arctic tundra food webs, and to enable prudent science-based management. COAT collaborates with Centre for Adaptive Nature Management (CAN) in Aarhus, Denmark, where the PhD student will have a research stay. A public sector secondment with Finnmarkseiendommen (FeFo) is also planned.