Arctic Community Resilience to Boreal Environmental change: Assessing Risks from fire and disease

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as global mean temperature increases. High latitude communities are searching for ways to address the consequences of an increase in temperatures and heat extremes. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we aim to address two key pathways between these rapid changes and risks to human health across high latitudes: climatically-driven changes to landscape fire activity and associated air quality degradation, and natural-focal disease (NFD) occurrence. The pan-Arctic region is characterised by vast boreal forest areas, which are prone to intense vegetation fires, acting as a source of air pollutants. Several extreme Boreal fire seasons in recent years have led to widespread increases in pollution, and associated health impacts. The natural boreal landscape incorporates hosts and vectors of NFD, with strong sensitivity to warming. Warming, humidity changes and weather extremes at high latitudes have led to tick-borne diseases becoming more endemic in these regions. These risks are potentially linked through fire impacts on NFD hosts and vectors. There is potential for widespread changes in these climate-health pathways under warming, but lack of understanding regarding their severity and capacity for resilience among local communities. In collaboration with local Arctic community groups, and other stakeholders, we will develop a framework for an end-to-end assessment of climate change impacts on these health risks, and create credible projections of how they will respond and interact under a range of climate and urban development scenarios. Outcomes will include information for communities and local policy makers for minimizing risks and an interactive online dashboard for visualisation of scenario data and impacts. We will work with community groups in education, faith-based groups, among others, to ensure widespread impact. A legacy of the project will be an online dashboard tool for mapping and visualising future and past risks and impacts, and incorporation of outcomes into local and national risk management planning.