Database Development

Leads:         Jack Kruse            University of Alaska                        afjak@uaa.alaska.edu

                     Larry Hamilton       University of New Hampshire        larry.hamilton@unh.edu

Our objective is to develop a relational database that includes four areas of expected climate-human interaction (fisheries; tourism; oil, gas, mining and marine transportation; and, marine mammal hunting), as well as community social indicators. We have the following performance goals for the relational database:

  1. Data is comparable over time with a desired time period of 1980-present and a desired time step of annual data.
  2. Data is comparable over space with a desired spatial resolution of political jurisdictions commonly called counties, boroughs, or districts.
  3. Data is comparable across climate-human interaction components. Concepts in common to climate-human interaction components include, among others: resource production, resource value, and direct employment.

Prior to the formal start of the project, in December 2006 Jack Kruse met with Larry Hamilton and Richard Lammers at the University of New Hampshire. The intent of the meeting was to become familiar with the Arctic-RIMS geodatabase and to decide if the database could be used as a starting point for the design of the geographic component of the AON-SIP database. The three agreed that the application of Arctic-RIMS to AON-SIP looks promising. Jack Kruse wrote up the results of their discussion as AON-HD Database Development. This document is being continually revised and is currently in its fourth draft. Since the project started the team has developed an AON Administrative Area Geographic Database containing 856 areas covering Alaska, northern Canada, northern Russia, Greenland, and western/northern Norway. This database is intended to integrate with the Arctic-RIMS database, building on the extensive work to precisely identify regional boundaries with the 25 kilometer EASE grid system used by many different disciplines.

The project convened a database design workshop in Leverett, Massachusetts September 17-18, 2007. Larry Hamilton led the workshop. Participants included Anna Karlsdóttir (University of Iceland), Marie Lowe (University of Alaska), and Jack Kruse  (University of Alaska). A key outcome of the workshop, prepared by Marie Lowe, is a Data Collection Protocol. This protocol provides guidelines to project team members so that their contributions to the project database will meet the three performance criteria above.

The team convened a combination database design/modeling workshop in Anchorage, Alaska September 21st, 2007. Participants included Matt Berman (University of Alaska), Anna Karlsdóttir (University of Iceland), Marie Lowe (University of Alaska), Ben Saylor, (University of Alaska), Meghan Wilson (University of Alaska), and Jack Kruse  (University of Alaska). Two key decisions emerged from this workshop. First, we distinguished between project objectives and project direction. Figure Two is intended to illustrate this distinction.

Our project focus is on human activities and associated human conditions. Our project direction is to be able to associate these human activities and associated human conditions with drivers of change. Of practical import to project activities is the fact that, within our project focus, we will not attempt to compile data on environmental changes. Thus we will not attempt to compile fisheries stock data, or oil reserve data. These data are relevant to our project direction, and we do want to design our database so that relationships to environmental changes and other drivers can be examined. Given our project resources – expertise, funding, time – our best application of project resources is to focus on human activities and associated human conditions.

A second key decision emerging from the database/modeling workshop was that that we would expand our geographic database objectives to include place level living conditions measures for a time period comparable to the Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: 2001-2006. The purpose of place level data for this time period is to support an analysis of relationships among individual level indicators of living conditions and community-level indicators.

 A major implication of the decision to include place-level data within the scope of this project is to embed places within project regions. Defining places is a major task in itself. We have developed a place-region geography for Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka. The AON Place Geography Database includes 977 places located within 122 county-level administrative jurisdictions.