Annett Bartsch, member of the Austrian Polar Research Institute APRI and managing director of b.geos, has more than ten years of experience in satellite image processing and focuses on research questions related to global warming and its impact on permafrost. Her current project, in collaboration with former APRI director Peter Schweitzer of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, is part of the Nunataryuk and CHARTER projects of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The results are published in Environmental Research Letters and for the first time were able to provide high-resolution data that allowed to map the human impact on the circumpolar coast within a 100 kim range covering 6.2 million km2. The European Space Agency (ESA) has published an Arctic human impact map based on its data to demonstrate the accelerating climatic changes and their impact on new infrastructure development in the Arctic. It was presented at COP26 by Hugues Lantuit, Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), at the Permafrost Day at COP26 Cryosphere Pavilion.
Global warming is driving wide spread degradation of the Earth’s cryosphere and warming in the Arctic is more pronounced than the global average (IPCC 2021). Several million people are living in permafrost regions in the Arctic. Ground temperatures are increasing and permafrost degradation is occurring in many regions. Arctic coastal communities are seen especially vulnerable to climate change due to the combined effects of sea ice loss and permafrost thaw. The latter is seen as a threat to the local environment and villages. The impact with respect to the economic value of ecosystem services, minerals and oil exploitation needs to be considered for a sustainable development of these regions.
Satellite data can be used to improve the detection of infrastructure indicating different human activities. The team of Bartsch used Satellite Sentinel-1/2 datasets and applied artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to identify transport infrastructure like roads and railway, buildings, and other impacted areas (Arctic Coastal Human Impact, SACHI). The study of Bartsch could provide a quantified change of recent human impact in the panarctic coastal zone since 2000. The combination with permafrost time series infrastructures allows to identify infrastructures potentially affected by the current climate change.
“The results suggest that the detectable human-impacted area in the Arctic coastal region has increased by 15% since 2000.”
Annett Bartsch, Ph.D. b.geos
The identification of infrastructure and population centres across the Arctic provides a step forward for human impact monitoring in Arctic environments. The combination with satellite derived vegetation index (NDVI) trends allows for identification of recently built infrastructure. The majority can be attributed to the oil/gas industry highlighting continued industrial development.
“With 10 meters of resolution, mapping becomes feasible, although there are still many
Annett Bartsch Ph.D., b.geos
features (human-made or otherwise) you can’t detect with that resolution.”
Most of the identified human impacts occurred in Russia, but also some in Canada and US
- – 31% and 5% of impacted area associated predominantly with oil/gas and mining industry respectively has appeared after 2000.
- – About 50% of the impacted area will be shifting to above 0°C ground temperature at two meter depth by 2050 if current permafrost warming trends continue at the pace of the last two decades.
These results highlight the critical importance to better understand how much and where Arctic infrastructure may become threatened by permafrost thaw. Positive ground temperature trends during the last two decades were observed for the vast majority of identified infrastructure objects. Although the goals for COP-26 were high to finally create binding targets for all nations to keep the earth’s warming below 1,5°C, its results remained vague and disputed due to the diverse interests of the world’s nations. Still, hope remains that all nations recognize the importance of effective measures for a decarbonization of human society with an agreed short-term implementation.
Press release Austrian Polar Research Institute
Link to the study: Annett Bartsch et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 115013, Expanding infrastructure and growing anthropogenic impacts along Arctic coasts
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