scholarly journals Arctic Council: Outcome of the First Year of the Icelandic Presidency

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-199
Author(s):  
Valery P. ZHURAVEL ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Russian Far East ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Marine Debris ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
First Year ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Impact

In the article based on the report of the Chairman of the Committee of Senior Officials in the Arctic Council, Einar Gunnarsson «Together on the road to a sustainable Arctic: one year in 2019-2021 of the presidency of Iceland», the first year of Iceland’s Arctic Council presidency is reviewed by the Senior Officials Committee. Key priorities for action are identified, which are protecting the Arctic marine envi-ronment, combating ocean acidification; sustainable development of the fisheries sector; reducing ocean pollution; combating marine debris; combating climate change and introducing green energy; ensuring the sustainable development of the indigenous community of the Arctic; continuing to strengthen and enhance the role of the Arctic Council in maintaining peace, international cooperation and political stability in the Arctic region. Also, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Icelandic presidency and the development of Arctic cooperation are being considered. Of interest is the analysis of measures taken to counter the pandemic among the small indigenous communities of the North, Siberia and the Russian Far East. Iceland’s plans for the second year of its chairmanship of the Arctic Council are indicated. The author also discusses Russian-Icelandic cooperation at the current stage in the economic field and in the sphere of interregional relations. It is noted that our countries share a common memory of the joint struggle against fascism, and Russia remembers with gratitude Iceland’s contribution to the formation and support of polar convoys.

scholarly journals How Does the Arctic Council Support Conservation of Arctic Biodiversity?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5042
Author(s):  
Tom Barry ◽  
Brynhildur Daviðsdóttir ◽  
Níels Einarsson ◽  
Oran R. Young
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
Insight Into

The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among Arctic states, indigenous communities, and peoples on issues of common importance. The rising geo-political importance of the Arctic and the onset of climate change has resulted in the Council becoming a focus of increasing interest from both inside and beyond the Arctic. This has resulted in new demands placed on the Council, attracting an increasing number of participants, and instigating a period of transformation as Arctic states work to find a way to balance conflicting demands to improve the Council’s effectiveness and take care of national interests. This paper considers whether, during this time of change, the Council is having an impact on the issues it was formed to address, i.e., environmental protection and sustainable development. To provide answers, it looks at how the Council reports on and evaluates progress towards the implementation of recommendations it makes regarding biodiversity, how it identifies where activities have had impacts and uncovers the mechanisms through which they were successful, to provide an insight into how the Arctic Council can be an agent of change.

scholarly journals Sustainable Development of the Arctic Indigenous Communities: The Approach to Projects Optimization of Mining Company

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 7963 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrey Novoselov ◽  
Ivan Potravny ◽  
Irina Novoselova ◽  
Violetta Gassiy
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Mining Company ◽  
Mining Projects ◽  
The Impact

The article discusses the issues of sustainable development of indigenous communities in the Arctic based on the optimization of projects of mining companies. The purpose of the article is to develop tools for decision-making to optimize the mining projects based on economic and mathematical models. The authors suppose that, by comparing and selecting different options for resource extraction, the use of various technologies and the impact of projects, the conditions of the traditional life of indigenous peoples, the preservation of health, it is possible to find a compromise solution for stakeholders. The case-study of Alrosa—a diamond giant mining in Yakutia is researched in the paper. To ensure sustainable development of traditional lands, it is proposed to optimize mining projects, in order to carry out a project maneuver during Arctic development. The project maneuver of the mining company makes it possible to choose the optimal solution from the existing alternatives for the extraction of minerals. The authors propose criteria and procedures for the selection of alternative options for the implementation of extractive projects. The alternative projects selected in this way make it possible to compensate to indigenous communities for the negative impact during industrial development of the Arctic.

scholarly journals Priorities of marketing, competitiveness, and innovative development of transport service providers under sustainable urban development

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 78-89
Author(s):  
Tetiana Borysova ◽  
Grygorii Monastyrskyi ◽  
Olena Borysiak ◽  
Yuliia Protsyshyn
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Energy Development ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Homogeneous Groups ◽  
Taxi Drivers ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Business Automation

Monitoring the growing role of implementing sustainable development goals, on the one hand, and the use of the Internet of things in various spheres of life, on the other, is changing the way people think about their mobility. The urgency of this scientific problem is the need to review municipal policies on approaches to the use of appropriate methods of public transport to improve municipal transport infrastructure policies in the light of advances in «green» energy development. This article justifies the need to focus on the study of changes in the Ukrainian taxi drivers’ behavior in the urban environment on the development of «green» energy, development of appropriate programs to coordinate the requests of users and providers of taxi services through sustainable development and digitization of taxi services. In addition, the impact of sustainable energy development on transport diversification and the use of environmental modes of transport, in particular, electric cars as taxis, are analyzed, depending on the number of charging stations and access to electricity. The methodological tools used were cluster analysis, expert surveys, face-to-face interviews, statistical and fuzzy multiple estimation methods. The subject of the study was selected taxi services and taxi users in the Ternopil region. According to the survey results, the priority factors for the environmental behavior of Ukrainian taxi drivers were the level of business automation and the size of the taxi fleet. In a survey conducted by experts to examine the environmental safety of vehicles and the level of automation of enterprises, most taxi services were found to be environmentally unsound, focusing on sustainable development and environmental issues. The most problematic are technical support, automated ordering system, and significant vehicle wear in small cities. To determine the approaches to the management of greening, the objects of study were organized into relatively homogeneous groups. To this end, a cluster analysis was conducted. The study subjects were grouped into relatively homogeneous groups. The authors justified the feasibility of differentiated strategies and reaffirmed the idea of developing different approaches to environmental development depending on the level of environmental friendliness of vehicles, business automation, and relative shares of the fleet. The study results could be useful for infrastructure scientists and practitioners, taxi managers and owners, andlocal government officials.

scholarly journals The Role of the Arctic Economic Council in the International Legal Framework of the Arctic Ocean Environmental Governing

2020 ◽  
pp. 6-26
Author(s):  
A. N. Vylegzhanin ◽  
N. V. Korchunov ◽  
A. R. Tevatrosyan
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Arctic Ocean ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
International Forum ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
The Arctic Ocean ◽  
Economic Council

INTRODUCTION. The article covers the legal aspects of the establishment of a new international forum – the Arctic Economic Council – and its role in the existing international legal framework for governing the Arctic Ocean, including the Arctic seas. The status and the functioning of the said international forum, particularly with regard to the activities within its Working Groups, have been examined based on the analysis of the documents adopted by the forum since its establishment. Special attention has been paid to the legal analysis of the coordination of the newly established forum with the Arctic Council and the prospects of such institutional cooperation.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The research done by the authors on the relevant documents released by the Artic Council, in the context of legal and scientific sources on the topic of the Arctic Ocean and its seas, as well as on the Reports of the Arctic Economic Council submitted to the Senior Officials of the Arctic Council, underlies this article. The article also takes into consideration political and legal research of the Arctic Council’s work, aimed at the sustainable development of the economic activities in the region, as well as respective archive documents from the electronic database of the Arctic Council, including relevant press releases.RESEARCH RESULTS. The Arctic Economic Council (AEC), established upon the initiative of the Arctic Council in 2014, is a new circumpolar business-forum, which aims at fostering the sustainable development of the Arctic region by substantive cooperation with the entrepreneurs, carrying out economic activities in the region or planning to do so. The new international organization has the potential to become an effective international legal mechanism to promote greener economies in the Arctic; meanwhile, the organization is yet to become a constructive platform for dialogue on fostering the economic activities in the region.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The AEC foundational documents determine the structure and the course of action of the organization. The article, nevertheless, suggests that the executives and the Secretary of this newly established international forum ensure that the business representatives, committed to conduct activities in the Arctic, seek to comply with the international environmental standards, applicable to the Arctic; particularly that, subject to the unique vulnerability of the Arctic environment, an exchange of best practices takes place. Moreover, in view of the increased shipping and growth of other marine activities in the region, the Arctic business standards not only need to be more environmentally oriented, but also take into account the possibility of diversifying the Arctic economy. The AEC could focus its efforts on enhancing the quality of the regional regulation of the economic activities in the Arctic, paying particular attention to the coordinated self-regulative measures of the legal entities in different countries. In this case, its activities may prove to be more relevant and effective.

scholarly journals Climate change and biodiversity; impacts, vulnerability and mitigation in Indian perspective : A review

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 632-638
Author(s):  
D. K. Soni ◽  
Farid Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Anthropogenic Activities ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
The Impact

As per the nature of law, changes are bound to be happening in the system if any component of the system gets altered by any means. Change of climate and subsequently loss of biodiversity threatens the existence of human being. The loss of biodiversity, which has been happening worldwide, poses a serious threat to the anthro-pological system. An investigation of the current trend and future scenario shows that this loss is likely to continue in the foreseeable times. India has a huge variety of biodiversity and in the last few decades, its biodiversity has come under threat from climate change which accelerated by the anthropogenic activities of various sources of pollution. The review shows that climate change is a serious environmental challenge that undermines the determination for sustainable development. Climate change has become the most crucial environmental concern of the decade. Much attention is rightly focused on reducing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases from industrial, energy and transport sector through reduction in fuel consumption and use of renewable/green energy. However, as countries are looking for mitigation and adaptation processes, protection of natural habitats is a key factor of climate change strategies. Strengthened support for protected areas and more sustainable resource management can contribute to strategies as well as for protection of the biological resources and ecosystem. Climate change is developing as one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, increasing pressures on genetic resources, species and populations. Biodiver-sity conservation and sustainable development are the possible ways to curtail the impact of climate change. Although, adequate efforts have been made worldwide to tackle the environmental challenges, the adverse effects of climate change are still accelerating and the rate of loss of biodiversity is continuing globally.

International Legal Aspects of Environmental Management in the Arctic

2019 ◽  
pp. 428-450
Author(s):  
Olga Pasko ◽  
Natalia Staurskaya ◽  
Anna Safronova
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Arctic Ecosystems ◽  
Industrial Facilities ◽  
The Sustainable Development

The chapter is about contemporary ecological problems of the Arctic with regard to the relevant regulations, as well as their practical implementation. The chapter outlines the range of problems related to the coordination of international cooperation and concerted actions of stakeholder states for sustainable development in the region. The goals of international treaties on environmental protection have been classified. There is a review of key tendencies of legal regulation improvement for safeguarding Arctic ecosystems and the designation of protected areas. The natural resources and theoretical issues of their use have been thoroughly described and illustrated with examples obtained internationally. There are conclusions on the state of the art in the field of international rules and regulations for the sustainable development of the Arctic, in particular by sound environmental management, improvement of infrastructure and industrial facilities, preservation of the authentic culture of the northern indigenous communities, and improvement of the quality of their life.

Convolutional Neural Networks for Classification of Sea Ice Types in Sentinel-1 SAR Data

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Korosov ◽  
Hugo Boulze ◽  
Julien Brajard
Keyword(s):  
Random Forest ◽  
Sea Ice ◽  
Classification Accuracy ◽  
Thermal Noise ◽  
Noise Removal ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
First Year ◽  
Sar Data ◽  
The Impact

<p>A new algorithm for classification of sea ice types on Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data using a convolutional neural network (CNN) is presented.  The CNN is trained on reference ice charts produced by human experts and compared with an existing machine learning algorithm based on texture features and random forest classifier. The CNN is trained on a dataset from winter 2020 for retrieval of four classes: ice free, young ice, first-year ice and old ice. The accuracy of our classification is 91.6%. The error is a bit higher for young ice (76%) and first-year ice (84%). Our algorithm outperforms the existing random forest product for each ice type. It has also proved to be more efficient in computing time and less sensitive to the noise in SAR data.</p><p> </p><p>Our study demonstrates that CNN can be successfully applied for classification of sea ice types in SAR data. The algorithm is applied in small sub-images extracted from a SAR image after preprocessing including thermal noise removal. Validation shows that the errors are mostly attributed to coarse resolution of ice charts or misclassification of training data by human experts.</p><p> </p><p>Several sensitivity experiments were conducted for testing the impact of CNN architecture, hyperparameters, training parameters and data preprocessing on accuracy. It was shown that a CNN with three convolutional layers, two max-pool layers and three hidden dense layers can be applied to a sub-image with size 50 x 50 pixels for achieving the best results. It was also shown that a CNN can be applied to SAR data without thermal noise removal on the preprocessing step. Understandably, the classification accuracy decreases to 89% but remains reasonable.</p><p> </p><p>The main advantages of the new algorithm are the ability to classify several ice types, higher classification accuracy for each ice type and higher speed of processing than in the previous studies. The relative simplicity of the algorithm (both texture analysis and classification are performed by CNN) is also a benefit. In addition to providing ice type labels, the algorithm also derives the probability of belonging to a class. Uncertainty of the method can be derived from these probabilities and used in the assimilation of ice type in numerical models. </p><p><br>Given the high accuracy and processing speed, the CNN-based algorithm is included in the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) for operational sea ice type retrieval for generating ice charts in the Arctic Ocean. It is already released as an open source software and available on Github: https://github.com/nansencenter/s1_icetype_cnn.</p>

scholarly journals ARCTIC SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DURING RUSSIAN CHAIRMANSHIP AT THE ARCTIC COUNCIL

2021 ◽  
Vol 228 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-235
Author(s):  
JULIA V. ZVORYKINA ◽  
◽  
KIRILL S. TETERYATNIKOV ◽  
DANEK А. PAVLOVSKY ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Law ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
World Economy ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Arctic Council ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Russian Federation

The article is meant to analyze new opportunities of the forthcoming presidency of the Russian Federation in the Arctic Council designed to implement the Arctic Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, strengthen international cooperation and give a new impetus to largescale national and international sustainable development projects in the Arctic, focused on improving the resilience of the environment and population of the Council member states. The authors considered the approaches to formulation of sustainable development priorities in international law and Russian legislation, peculiarities of sustainable development projects in the Arctic, prospective directions of Russian chairmanship in the Arctic Council taking into account postpandemic development of the world economy. Relevant proposals and recommendations on specific areas of cooperation and major projects that could be implemented in the interests of all member states of the Arctic Council are given. A proposal for Arctic Development Bank foundation has been put forward and substantiated.

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