Arctic Resilience Report Scoping Workshop

This report documents a scoping workshop held in Stockholm, Sweden, from September 26-28, 2011, to plan the Arctic Resilience Report (ARR). The workshop aimed to establish a science-based framework for assessing the risks of abrupt, potentially irreversible changes in Arctic social-ecological systems caused by interacting drivers such as climate change and social development. The resulting proposal, approved by the Arctic Council in November 2011, outlines a project to identify tipping points, evaluate resilience, and develop strategies for adaptation and transformation to inform decision-makers.

• The Arctic Resilience Report (ARR) is designed as a science-based assessment to identify the risk of crossing disastrous tipping points in the Arctic and to provide strategies for governments and communities to adapt or transform.
• A resilience framework is identified as a useful analytical tool for analyzing potential thresholds that could lead to abrupt and sometimes irreversible changes across local, regional, and pan-arctic scales.
• The ARR process emphasizes the necessity of integrating different knowledge traditions, specifically highlighting the critical role of indigenous traditional knowledge in the report's structure and conceptual framework.
• The workshop identified a wide array of drivers of change in the Arctic, categorized into physical environmental changes (e.g., sea level rise, thawing permafrost), primarily social drivers (e.g., militarisation, geopolitical changes), and drivers combining both (e.g., oil and mineral exploration, shipping routes).
• General resilience in the Arctic is supported by several factors, including well-being (physical and mental health), environmental diversity (biodiversity), governance (functioning government and education), economic diversification, and shared heritage (cultural identity and history of survival).
• Potential tipping points in the Arctic were identified across three scales: local (e.g., loss of traditional knowledge, shift in food consumed), regional (e.g., permafrost disappearance, shift from subsistence to market economy), and pan-Arctic (e.g., methane release, ice cover to ice free in the summer).
• The ARR is intended to complement other Arctic Council activities, such as the Arctic Change Assessment (ACA), the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, and the Arctic Ocean Review conducted by PAME.
• The proposed project structure for the ARR includes a Project Steering Committee (PSC) for oversight, an Assessment Integration Team (AIT) for scientific input and writing, and a work plan involving case studies, integration activities, and capacity building.
• The ARR project was proposed to run from 2012 to 2015, with an interim report planned for May 2013 and a final project report for May 2015.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Arctic Resilience Report Scoping Workshop. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Report-AnnikaENilsson-ArcticResilienceReportScopingWorkshop-2011.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Arctic Resilience Report Scoping Workshop. n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Report-AnnikaENilsson-ArcticResilienceReportScopingWorkshop-2011.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Arctic Resilience Report Scoping Workshop |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Report-AnnikaENilsson-ArcticResilienceReportScopingWorkshop-2011.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendarctic, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Arctic Resilience Report Scoping Workshop}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Report-AnnikaENilsson-ArcticResilienceReportScopingWorkshop-2011.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }