POLARIS: Migration, food security, and environmental change survey responses from households in Western Alaska, 2024-2025

Alaskan coastal communities face severe, urgent, and complex social and infrastructural challenges resulting from environmental changes. Coastlines are degrading and this impacts infrastructure that communities use on a daily basis, changing how people access and hunt for food and other natural resources and conduct their lives. The magnitude and significance of impacts are unclear as is how local communities will respond to resulting disruptions and disasters. A major problem facing researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers in addressing these issues is that existing research is piecemeal. The whole picture of coastal communities is not well understood, and ways to address problems they face are not as effective as they could be. These challenges demand a robust, integrated, and convergent research platform to identify the complexities of the issues and the ways communities can respond. The POLARIS (Pursuing Opportunities for Long-term Arctic Resilience for Infrastructure and Society) project supplies a research platform for analyzing current and future needs in order to create resilient communities in the face of a changing environment.
The POLARIS project identified three convergent research pillars to help communities adapt: environmental hotspots of disruption to communities and infrastructure, food in complex adaptive systems, and migration and community relocation. Researchers from a variety of fields came together with local community members to conduct the research. The survey questions covered the topics of food security, migration dynamics, individual and household socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, livelihood strategies, life satisfaction, as well as observations and perceptions of environmental changes and risks, and subsistence practices. Four waves were conducted, covering topics from the three pillars. Survey questions and data are available upon request. The data and analysis created through surveying local community members inform local, state, and national decision makers and leaders about how to address infrastructure and social needs in the face of environmental changes. The integrated research project aims to support communities to become more resilient with both stronger societies, civic culture, and improved infrastructure needed as the new Arctic continues to emerge.
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