[M-IS01] Environmental, Socio-Economic and Climatic Changes in Northern Eurasia

[MIS01-P03] Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI), Three Regional Groups of the NEFI Studies

*Pavel Groisman^1,2, Jiquan Chen³ (1.NC State University Research Scholar at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Asheville, North Carolina, USA, 2.Hydrology Science & Services Corporation, Asheville, North Carolina, USA, 3.Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA)

Keywords:Northern Eurasia, Environment and socio-economic changes, Climate change

When twenty years ago we launched Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) and thereafter in 2016 modified it into the Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI) with a new set of major science questions. For NEESPI, the major science question was “How do Northern Eurasia’s terrestrial ecosystems dynamics interact with and alter the biosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere, and hydrosphere of the Earth?”. This type of questions assumes large spatial expanses of individual studies. For NEFI, the major science question has been appended with a following science question: “How to provide in the study region a sustainable societal development (economy well-being, activities, health, and strategic planning) in changing climate, ecosystems, and societies?”. These types of questions immediately downscale the spatial extent of the new generation of NEFI projects. It is difficult to expand “human dimension” of individual research projects from the Arctic to the subtropical semi-deserts. Study areas of these projects are located (practically, without overlaps) in three main regions of Northern Eurasia (see, the attached Figure): (1) The Arctic, (2) the Boreal Forest Zone and (3) the Dryland Latitudinal Belt of Northern Eurasia, DLB. Currently, NEFI includes 11 projects in the Eurasian Arctic, 10 projects in the Eurasian Boreal Forest Zone, and 14 projects in the DLB of Northern Eurasia.

At our Session, examples of the projects for each region will be presented in communications of Drs. Kuklina, Kirillina, and Streletskiy (Arctic), Shvetsov, Achikolova, Buryak, Kukavskaya, and Olchev (Boreal Forest Zone), and John, Kolluru, Yuan, Kerimov, and J. Chen (DLB) respectively. Only two communications at our Session (Shirai et al. and Olchev and Gulev) focus on the carbon cycle problems relevant to the entire subcontinent.

References:
Chen J. et al. 2022: Sustainability Challenges for the Social-Environmental Systems across the Asian Drylands Belt. Environ. Res. Lett. 17, 023001.

Groisman P.Ya. et al. 2017: Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI): facing the challenges and pathways of global change in the twenty-first century. Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, 4:41. doi: 10.1186/s40645-017-0154-5.