The Greenland Hazards Project (GHP) is funded by a five-year grant through the National Science Foundation’s Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) initiative. GHP Earth scientists from Virginia Tech and the University of Colorado Boulder join science and government collaborators in Greenland to address needs for information about natural hazards using radar and optical remote sensing, geodetic field studies and community-based photogrammetry projects.

As lead qualitative researcher with the Greenland Hazards Project, I examine:

1) how GHP scientists make sense of and communicate understanding about environmental risks and hazards impacting communities in Greenland,

2) how GHP scientists give meaning to their role(s), values, and activities in decision-making processes, and

3) emergent barriers to collaboration between scientists and members of Greenland communities.

The Greenland Hazards Project is funded through Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), one of the National Science Foundation’s 10 Big Ideas.

From NSF.gov, major goals of NNA include:

-Improved understanding of Arctic change and its local and global effects that capitalize on innovative and optimized observation infrastructure, advances in understanding of fundamental processes, and new approaches to modeling interactions among the natural environment, built environment, and social systems.

-New and enhanced research communities that are diverse, integrative, and well-positioned to carry out productive research on the interactions or connections between natural and built environments and social systems and how these connections inform our understanding of Arctic change and its local and global effects.

-Research outcomes that inform national security, economic development, and societal well-being, and enable resilient and sustainable Arctic communities.

-Enhanced efforts in formal and informal education that focus on the social, built, and natural impacts of Arctic change on multiple scales and broadly disseminate research outcomes.