.png)
News
Our fieldwork in Alaska – 2026
July 31–August 12, 2026
The SESTRA multidisciplinary team of researchers and students from UNH, UAF, UNI, and GWU conducted fieldwork in McGrath, Akiak, and Akiachak,– three communities located within Alaska’s Kuskokwim River basin.
The fieldwork brought together environmental monitoring, social science research, community engagement, education, and knowledge-sharing activities to better understand how rapid environmental change is affecting riverine communities and local livelihoods, and to identify adaptation measures that can strengthen adaptive capacity and support long-term resilience.
On behalf of our team, we'd like to sincerely thank our local partners and supporters:
Joel Neimeyer (Neimeyer Consulting, Akiak Native Community), Kimberly Wortman (McGrath Native Village Council), Michele Greenamyre, Tim Yoder, Joyce Turner (McGrath City Council), Sheila Williams Carl and Lena (Maamcuk) Foss (Akiak Native Community (Tribal Council), James Boldosser (Akiak School), Christine Harrington and Clinton Spafford (Radio Station “KSKO, 89.5 FM” (Kuskokwim Public Broadcasting Corporation) in McGrath, and all the other wonderful people we had the pleasure of meeting during our field trip.
Our special thanks go to the participants of the Unit 4 Working Meeting in Akiak, as well as to all interview participants, for sharing their perspectives, hopes, and concerns about the future of their communities.
SESTRA senior researchers participating in the fieldwork:
Alexander Shiklomanov (UNI), Alexander Kholodov (UAF),
Marya Rozanova-Smith (GWU), Victoria Sharakhmatova (UNI).
SESTRA students–research assistants:
Evan King (GWU) and Amelia Ogawa (GWU).
Fieldwork community meetings and project presentations
July 31 –August 12, 2026
McGrath – Akiak – Akiachak, Alaska
SESTRA engaged communities through a variety of collaborative and knowledge-sharing activities.
The team organized two Community Potlucks with project presentations in McGrath Tribal Council (August 3) and Akiak Tribal Council Bingo Hall (August 7).
The gatherings provided an informal and welcoming setting for residents to learn about the SESTRA project, participate in door-prize activities, meet members of the research team, discuss environmental changes affecting their communities, and share their own observations and experiences.
The field team also brought the project to a broader regional audience through KSKO 89.5 FM, Kuskokwim Public Broadcasting Corporation, in McGrath on August 5. During the radio program, researchers introduced the SESTRA project, discussed its progress and preliminary findings, and invited greater engagement from residents of McGrath and neighboring communities.
More news and videos will be available soon.
In Alaska, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 86% of Native communities are threatened by flooding, coastal or riverbank erosion, and thawing permafrost. These risks are no longer distant: many are already facing permanent damage to housing, roads and runways, and other essential infrastructure. Entire communities, including well-known ones like Newtok and Shishmaref, as well as newer cases such as Akiak and McGrath, are already contending with substantial destruction impacts and the reality of climate-forced relocation.
In this video, experts and community voices come together to illuminate urgent challenges. Through striking imagery and firsthand accounts, it illustrates how climate change is reshaping lives and placing the very survival of Arctic communities at risk, while also highlighting their extraordinary resilience.
Community voices: Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer, Director of Climate Initiatives, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium • Cimiugaq / George Carl, Newtok Village Council Member • Naunraq / Andrew John, Newtok Village Council Administrator.
Authors: Marya Rozanova-Smith, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences • Alexander Shiklomanov, University of New Hampshire • Richard Lammers, University of New Hampshire • Andrey Petrov, University of Northern Iowa • Vladimir Alexeev, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Video editor: Nikita Shiklomanov.
Our sincere appreciation to Patagonia, the Newtok documentary production team including Michael Kirby Smith, Andrew Burton, and Marie Meade, and the Newtok community for sharing their stories, hopes, and concerns.
Unit 4 Working Meeting
August 8, 2026
Akiak, Alaska
In collaboration with local partners, SESTRA organized the
Unit 4 Working Meeting in Akiak, Alaska. The meeting brought together representatives from all four Unit 4 communities to discuss current environmental challenges, community responses, and locally relevant adaptation strategies and solutions.
The meeting had two primary goals:
-
To discuss the environmental threats facing each of the four Unit 4 Tribes, including the ways these challenges are shared across communities as well as how they differ according to local environmental, social, and infrastructural conditions.
-
To provide each community with an opportunity to share how it is responding to these threats, identify approaches that are working well, and discuss areas where additional community-led action or support from external agencies could strengthen preparedness and adaptation.
The meeting included representatives from Akiak (12 participants), Akiachak (4 participants), Kwethluk (6 participants), and Tuluksak (2 participants).
The meeting was also open to the general public and welcomed additional participants from the Akiak community, including K–12 students. This broader participation created an opportunity for intercommunity knowledge sharing and dialogue across generations, bringing together local leadership, community members, researchers, and young people.
Discussions highlighted both shared and community-specific concerns related to environmental change and provided an important forum for identifying existing community capacities, barriers and opportunities for stronger coordination and institutional support.
The Unit 4 Working Meeting Report will be available soon.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth in Aarhus and watched our video On the Edge!
March 25–April 1, 2026
Aarhus, Denmark
The Arctic Science Summit Week - 2026 (ASSW)
ASSW 2026 Science Day
Arctic Observing Summit 2026
We are also especially grateful to the organizers for making these three excellent events such a success and for hosting the SESTRA presentations.
Our Explainer Video On the Edge was on a tour in Iceland!
October 16-18, 2025
Reykjavík, Iceland
The Arctic Circle Assembly is the largest high-profile international annual forum dedicated to Arctic issues.
In 2025, it convened more than 2,000 participants from
over 70 countries.
Photos are courtesy of Marya Rozanova-Smith and the Arctic Circle Assembly.
Our field work in Mongolia in Summer 2025
June 7–20:
-
Expedition to Khövsgöl aimag included: Ulaanbaatar- Erdenet -Mörön-Khatgal-Bayanzurkh-Mörön- Erdenet-Ulaanbaatar (7-17 June)
-
SESTRA Project presentation at the International Conference Environmental Science and Technology – EST 2025 (The Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, 18-20 June). Our special thanks to all Mongolian colleagues and the Director of the Institute, Dr. Dashtseren Avirmed.
August 1–22
SESTRA team working sites:
Mörön, Bayanzurkh, Tsagaannuur, Sukhbaatar, Khatgal.
Research objectives:
-
Permafrost measurements in Bayanzurkh
-
PhotoVoice master-classes and drone surveys in Bayanzurkh and Tsagaannuur
-
ArtSLInK workshop in Khatgal
-
Workshops and RIMS trainings in Mörön and Sukhbaatar.
Photo credit: Natalya Saprunova.
SESTRA-RIMS Trainings in Mongolia in August 2025
On August 11, 2025, SESTRA research team organized RIMS training workshops in Mörön, August 15 – in Sukhbaatar, Selenge aimag on Rapid Integrated Mapping and data analysis System (RIMS) for SESTRA project developed at UNH.
The workshops generated great interest among various environmental specialists representing the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Hydrometeorological Service, Construction and Urban Development and Water Management Agencies as well as geography teachers from several local high schools who found that the RIMS tool is very useful for various educational applications.
Our field work in Alaska
August 2024
The SESTRA Project research team conducted field work in Alaska in August 2024.
The team worked in Bethel, Akiak, Kwethluk, and McGrath, focusing on identifying and analyzing changes in hydroclimatological components of the natural system that affect human activities and ecosystem services, as well as examining changes in riverine socioeconomic systems.
An important part of this trip was the in-person engagement with the SESTRA Project partners, local stakeholders, local media, and community members.
March 20–28, 2025
University of Colorado Boulder, USA
The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW)
Fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV)
Session Arctic Riverine Systems and Communities: Changes, Adaptations, and Future Research Priorities
Description:
Many Arctic communities are located along the rivers. Rivers play a major role in supporting the Indigenous livelihoods in the Arctic throughout the millennia and enable transportation, commercial activity, and subsistence practices today. In the recent decades Arctic rivers and their basins experienced dramatic changes in respect to hydroclimatic regimes, biological diversity, environmental conditions, and industrial development. Although major efforts have been lately devoted to highlighting, understanding and addressing multiple challenges faced by coastal Arctic communities, riverine social-ecological systems (SES), specifically, received relatively limited attention. This session will gather papers focused on riverine Arctic SES and communities to elicit state-of-the-art knowledge about key changes and challenges and identity research priorities within the context of the ICARP IV process.
The session welcomed projects focused on interactions between changing climate, hydrology, cryosphere, and human processes in order to improve local-regional resilience and adaptive capacity.
The Session was organized by the SESTRA Project in cooperation with the ARCTICenter, UNI, and the Cold Regions Lab, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
March 20–28, 2025
University of Colorado Boulder, USA
The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW)
Fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV)
Session Indigenizing Research Agenda and Methodology in Arctic Science
Description:
Indigenizing research agenda and methodology is an important priority to ensure that Arctic research is respectful and inclusive of Indigenous knowledge, is ethically conducted, and addresses urgent community needs and priorities.
We invite researchers, especially Indigenous scholars, to share their experiences in implementing the Indigenized and knowledge co-production approaches throughout the complete research process, including:
-
The principle of community engagement at all stages of project implementation.
-
FAIR, CARE, and other principles on Indigenous data sovereignty and governance.
-
Local communities' cultural protocols for fieldwork.
-
The Free, Prior, Informed Consent.
-
The principle of transparency.
For this Session, we also invite presentations on Indigenous leadership in Arctic research, data use and dissemination, with a special focus on community data ownership and sovereignty principles, as well as co-authorship/first-authorship with community members when publishing and disseminating research results.
The Session was organized by the ARCTICenter, UNI, Project Understanding the Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic (COVID-GEA), and Project Measuring Urban Sustainability in Transition (MUST), and Project Socio-Ecological Systems Transformation in River basins of the sub-Arctic under climate change (SESTRA).
Our field visit to Mongolia
July 2024
The SESTRA Project research team conducted a field visit to Mongolia in July 2024, where they participated in a Workshop Interrogating the cooperative governance of water in Inner Asia and engaged with Project partners and local stakeholders.
March 5-7, 2024
Washington, DC
The George Washington University
Session Transformations of Socio-Ecological Systems in Pan-Arctic River Basins under Climate Change
Description:
Cold regions are experiencing unprecedented environmental change that coincides with social and economic transformations. Given the vital role of water systems in cold regions, current changes in climate, land cover and water cycle have significantly impacted sustainability of many local communities through increased streamflow, river bank erosion, permafrost thaw, and changed precipitation pattern, vegetation and river/lake ice magnitude and timing. We propose a session aimed at understanding how changes in climate and hydrology impact people and ecosystems of riverine communities in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions.
The session welcomed projects focused on interactions between changing climate, hydrology, cryosphere, and human processes in order to improve local-regional resilience and adaptive capacity.
The Session was organized by the SESTRA Project in cooperation with the ARCTICenter, UNI, and the Cold Regions Lab, GWU.
April 16–20, 2024
Honolulu, Hawai'i
Session Indigenizing Research Agenda and Geography Research Methodologies
Description:
Indigenizing research agenda and research methods is an important priority to ensure that geographical research is respectful and inclusive of Indigenous knowledge, is ethically conducted, and addresses urgent community needs and priorities.
We invited researchers, especially Indigenous scholars, to share their experiences in implementing the Indigenized and knowledge co-production approaches throughout the complete research process.
The Session was organized by the ARCTICenter, University of Northern Iowa, Measuring Urban Sustainability in Transition (MUST) Project, the Understanding the Gendered Impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic (COVID-GEA) Project, and the Socio-Ecological Systems Transformation in River basins of the sub-Arctic under climate change (SESTRA) Project.
