Abstract
To support the predicted growth of shipping activities in the Arctic region in coming decades, port developments and associated shipping infrastructure will be required to be developed in both Arctic and sub-Arctic areas. Such large-scale development in unique and potentially vulnerable areas are likely to have wide-ranging effects and associated impacts. We therefore consider the future challenges, opportunities and knowledge gaps associated with the environmental impacts of developing Arctic and sub-Arctic port infrastructure. Here we present the outputs of an international, virtual workshop held in January 2022 exploring this theme. The workshop brought together Arctic, marine and port researchers, practitioners, non-governmental organisations, and local communities representing a range of geographies and disciplines. Based on pre-workshop consultation, five topics were considered: marine mammals and noise; discharges and pollution; ecosystem impacts and effects; environmental management and assessment; and infrastructure and geography. Dissemination of the workshop found five overriding themes that were common across each topic discussion: i) utilising best practice and governance; ii) community and Indigenous Peoples engagement and participation; iii) common vs. Arctic-specific challenges; iv) impact assessment including consideration of cumulative impacts and effects; and v) climate change. The workshop highlighted the requirement to continue to build and broaden discussion, for further collaborative work and research streams to be developed, to ensure any future Arctic and sub-Arctic port infrastructure, in support of Arctic shipping, is developed sustainably.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 146-162 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Polar Journal |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 14 May 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The “Scanning the Horizon: Identifying challenges, knowledge gaps and opportunities for sustainable development of port infrastructure for the Arctic’s Shipping Routes” workshop was funded by the Scottish Government’s Arctic Connection Fund; ref No. ACF21-02 ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/arctic-connections-fund-successful-projects/ ) and supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Funded ePICenter project, grant agreement No. 861584 ( https://epicenterproject.eu/ ). The authors would like to thank Jan Dusik of WWF Arctic programme for his considerable contribution to the project proposal and submission, workshop planning and facilitation; Anthony Field, WWF UK for reviewing the workshop report; and Andrea Norgren, WWF Arctic Programme for her help with social media and dissemination of the workshop outputs. In addition, the authors would like to thank the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland is funded by the Scottish Funding Council; grant ref No. HR09011) and contributing institutions) and Hannah Ladd-Jones for their support, provision of the workshop online platform and assistance with workshop facilitation.
Keywords
- Arctic
- best practice
- Climate change
- community engagement
- port infrastructure
- shipping
Access to Document
- Gormley_TPJ_First_port_of_VOR
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-ium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.