Northumbria University researchers are part of a unique team working on a new £1m project to better equip Indigenous communities in the Arctic against the disproportionate impacts of climate change.
Northumbria University researchers are part of a unique team working on a new £1m project to better equip Indigenous communities in the Arctic against the disproportionate impacts of climate change.
The study, involving local community researchers and action groups, government agencies and decision-makers, Inuit knowledge-holders, and leading UK and Canadian academics, will investigate changing ground conditions and assess their wider implications in coastal regions of Canada’s Inuit homeland that are under threat from thawing permafrost, disappearing sea ice and high rates of erosion.
Nearly a third of Canada’s landmass and 50 per cent of its coastline is within the area of Inuit Nunangat, home to approximately 65,000 Inuit people. The researchers will work with affected local communities to co-develop appropriate new tools and solutions to the landscape changes that threaten critical infrastructure, navigation routes, food and water security, and impact physical and mental health and wellbeing. Some areas are under such threat that they may be lost in as little as 20 years.
The project, which is named Nuna, taken from the word for ‘land’, ‘country’ and ‘soil’ in the Inuvialuktun language, brings together experts from Northumbria’s Departments of Mechanical and Construction Engineering, Geography and Environmental Sciences and Maths, Physics and Electrical Engineering, alongside their Canadian counterparts from McGill and Wilfred Laurier Universities.
Read More: Northumbria University - Newcastle
Professor Mike Lim undertaking research in Canada’s Inuit Nunangat. (Photo Credit: Weronika Murray)
