Seismic Resilience Framework for Arctic Infrastructure in Alaska: Integrating Climate Stressors for Enhanced Decision Making and Adaptation Strategies

In the world’s cold regions, Alaska stands as a highly seismic area with extensive permafrost coverage. Climate change has stimulated warming heightening infrastructure resilience challenges. To address these challenges, this study introduces an integrated seismic resilience framework. It employs a transdisciplinary approach, incorporating climate stressors through system dynamic models (SDM) that capture complex interactions that are difficult to be mathematically described. Furthermore, the outcome of a series of key informant interviews and an international workshop are employed to validate and expand the model. The results could lead to a policy space with two primary objectives: First, by integrating climate stressors, decision-makers can proactively consider the long-term impacts of changing environmental conditions and develop adaptive strategies to ensure infrastructure sustainability. Second, the SDM serves as a decision support tool, enabling stakeholders to understand the complex dynamics of Arctic systems and make informed choices to strengthen infrastructure resilience.