AMATII: Identifying ArcticOpportunities and Challenges

30 May 2013

Initiative Goal: To evaluate Northern infrastructure by creating an inventory of maritime and aviation assets in the Arctic.

Principal Investigator: Institute of the North, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Co-led by the United States and Iceland, under the guidance of the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group

AMATII Overview

Project Deliverables: Arctic Maritime and Aviation Infrastructure Database: a

web-based, searchable inventory of baseline public data; Arctic Maritime and Aviation Infrastructure Map: layers of

port and airport infrastructure provide a graphical representation of asset locations; and

Guidance Document: proceedings of the Arctic Transportation Infrastructure Workshop (December 2012) plus examples of Northern aviation and maritime infrastructure.

AMATII Overview

Parameters for data Canada - including Port of Skagway (Alaska), Port of

Churchill, and portions of Nunavik (Northern Québec) and northern Labrador and Newfoundland

Finland - north of 60º Greenland – all Faroe Islands - all Iceland - all Norway - north of 60º Russia - north of 60º and the Bering Sea Sweden - north of 60º United States/Alaska - coastline along the Bering Sea,

Chukchi Sea, and Beaufort Sea

AMATII Database

AMATII Database

URL: http://arcticinfrastructure.org/

Data was collected for aviation and maritime infrastructure in the following areas: Location, including

ICAO and IATA codes, latitude & longitude, airport size Operations (management), including

Hours of operation, contact info, customs, annual stats Physical attributes, including

Number of runways, dimensions, surface, restrictions Services, supplies, and communications

Medical assistance, nav aids, supplies, maintenance

Database interface

Opening maritime infrastructure

Maritime example - Murmansk

Map of Arctic maritime infrastructure

Map of Arctic aviation infrastructure

Arctic Transportation Infrastructure: Response Capacity and Sustainable Development

3-6 December 2012 Reykjavik, Iceland

Workshop Findings

1. Continued evaluation of response capacity is needed.

2. Increasing attention is being paid to communications, workforce development, mapping/bathymetry, and navigational aids

3. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to infrastructure development.

4. Infrastructure development must respond to social, environmental and cultural impacts.

Findings, continued

5. Creative funding strategies (i.e., PPPs) cannot be ignored.

6. Investments in infrastructure should be leveraged.

7. Sometimes there are simple solutions to problems that shared information can address.

8. Innovation can begin in the North where ingenuity sometimes means survivability.

9. Additional review of “loose” and mobile assets is warranted.

What’s next?

What new information is needed?

What layers are needed?

Additional new layers

Future: What ifs?

Diversion points - often to single runways or places of refuge. Worst case scenarios are difficult to plan for and planning needs to be done in stages.

Risk management strategies - recognizing the fluidity of risk management, consider proactive collaborative risk analysis with regular review for the future.

Costs of change - identify infrastructure that is under risk and needs remediation

The Arctic is not a static environment:

Future: What else?

Mobile assets – What assets move within the Arctic as well as outside (e.g., icebreakers)?

Staging infrastructure – Where are primary, secondary and tertiary response assets located?

Role of private sector – What private and/or industry-owned assets need to be considered?

These questions remain:

http://arcticinfrastructure.org/

www.institutenorth.org