Communities of Alaska's North Slope face increased stresses from cumulative effects of industrial development, resource use, and changing cryospheric and socioeconomic conditions. Given these multiple pressures, what avenues exist for citizens and decision makers to exchange knowledge about impacts of oil resource extraction in Alaska, and how do the successes and failures of knowledge exchange affect the resilience of the local social ecological system? We focused our research on the risk management process of Alaska North Slope oil resources, drawing on literature that has grown out of the risk society thesis and concepts of resilience science. We surveyed state and federal initiatives designed to increase local and indigenous stakeholder engagement in science and policy issues because such guidelines and regulations impact on the abilities of local peoples and communities to adapt sustainability strategies. Perceived risks and desired outcomes of stakeholders on the front lines of climate change and resource development should inform regulations that aim to anticipate future impacts and needed adaptation strategies. Integration of local values and perceptions in an adaptive risk management approach is fundamental in resilience-based ecosystem stewardship. The three case studies we have presented show that current provisions fail to equitably include the local and indigenous knowledge of Alaska's North Slope Borough communities in environmental risk mediation in proportion to the scope of risks inherent in current oil development policies. Our findings underscore the need for new, proactive risk management strategies that build on local stakeholders' rationalities on the trade-offs of risks and opportunities.

In the Arctic region, sea ice retreat as a decadal-scale crisis is creating a challenging environment for navigating long-term sustainability. Innovations in sea ice services can help marine users to anticipate sea ice concentration, thickness and motion, plan ahead, as well as increase the safety and sustainability of marine operations. Increasingly however, policy makers and information service providers confront paradoxical decision-making contexts in which contradictory solutions are needed to manage uncertainties across different spatial and temporal scales. This article proposes a forward-looking sea ice services framework that acknowledges four paradoxes pressuring sea ice service provision: the paradoxes of performing, contradictory functions embedded in sea ice services, contradicting desired futures and the paradox of responsible innovation. We draw on the results from a multi-year co-production process of (sub)seasonal sea ice services structured around scoping interviews, workshops and a participatory scenario process with representatives of marine sectors, fishers, hunters, metservice providers, and policy experts. Our proposed framework identifies institutionalized coproduction processes, enhanced decision support, paradoxical thinking and dimensions of responsible innovation as tactics necessary to address existing tensions in sea ice services. We highlight the role of socio-economic scenarios in implementing these tactics in support of responsible innovation in sea ice social–ecological systems. The article concludes with a discussion of questions around equity and responsibility raised by the ultimate confirmation that enhanced information, data infrastructures, and service provisions will not benefit all actors equally.

Global sustainability goals cannot realistically be achieved without strategies that build on multiscale definitions of risks to wellbeing. Particularly in geographic contexts experiencing rapid and complex social and environmental changes, there is a growing need to empower communities to realize self-identified adaptation goals that address self-identified risks. Meeting this demand requires tools that can help assess shared understandings about the needs for, and barriers to, positive change. This study explores consensus about risks and uncertainties in adjacent boroughs grappling with rapid social–ecological transformations in northern Alaska. The Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs, like the rest of the Arctic, are coping with a climate that is warming twice as fast as in other regions. The boroughs are predominantly inhabited by Iñupiat people, for whom the region is ancestral grounds, whose livelihoods are still supported by subsistence activities, and whose traditional tribal governance has been weakened through multiple levels of governing bodies and institutions. Drawing on extensive workshop discussions and survey experiments conducted with residents of the two boroughs, we developed a model of the northern Alaska region’s social–ecological system and its drivers of change. Using cultural consensus analysis, we gauged the extent of consensus across the boroughs about what key risks threaten the sustainability of their communities. Though both boroughs occupy vast swaths of land, each with their own resource, leadership, and management challenges, we found strong consensus around how risks that impact the sustainability of communities are evaluated and prioritized. Our results further confirmed that rapid and complex changes are creating high levels of uncertainties for community planners in both boroughs. We discuss the mobilizing potential of risk consensus toward collective adaptation action in the civic process of policy making. We note the contribution of cultural consensus analysis as a tool for cross-scale learning in areas coping with rapid environmental changes and complex social challenges.

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