Information systems for the Arctic Ocean: drivers, architecture, and effects on marine economic activities (ArcticInfo)

Large investments are currently made to improve mapping, monitoring, observing and surveying capabilities in the Arctic Ocean. These new technological infrastructures widen the range of available information about weather and sea-ice conditions in the Arctic. This provides a basis for the growth of informed economic activities, thus stretching the boundaries of the accessible Arctic. The information systems thereby seem to play a double role. While making the Arctic more controllable and predictable, they also enlarge the potential risks and hazards associated with increasing activity. The main objective of this project is to analyze the development of weather and sea ice information systems in the Arctic and how they affect economic decision-making.

The project has the following sub-objectives, which are linked to three thematic work packages.

(1) To investigate the development of Arctic information systems as socio-technical infrastructures;
(2) To understand the complexities and challenges in the user-producer interface in Arctic information systems;
(3) To explore how Arctic information systems affect economic decision-making and alters the Arctic as a zone of risk.


Start: January 22. 2016
End: December 31. 2020
Unit: Norwegian College of Fishery Science

Keywords: Information Infrastructures / Arctic




Funding:

The Fram Centre


Participants:

Maaike Knol-Kauffman
Peter Arbo


Results:

  1. Understanding the creation and use of polar weather and climate information (Academic article)
  2. Arctic weather and sea ice information infrastructures: dynamics and drivers (Popular scientific article)
  3. Making the Arctic predictable: the changing information infrastructure of Arctic weather and sea ice services (Academic article)
  4. Ice edge retreating: influence on maritime traffic around Svalbard (Academic lecture)