Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Northern Alaska is home to the largest designated wilderness landscape in the United States and among the world’s largest remaining roadless regions. Under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a semi-public corporation of t...
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2022
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic73828 https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/download/73828/55356 |
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crarcticinstna:10.14430/arctic73828 2024-06-09T07:42:10+00:00 Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska Dawson, Natalie G. Tricker, James Landres, Peter 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic73828 https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/download/73828/55356 unknown The Arctic Institute of North America http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ARCTIC volume 74, issue 4, page 469-481 ISSN 1923-1245 0004-0843 journal-article 2022 crarcticinstna https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic73828 2024-05-14T12:53:43Z Northern Alaska is home to the largest designated wilderness landscape in the United States and among the world’s largest remaining roadless regions. Under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a semi-public corporation of the state of Alaska, proposed an industrial road to access the Ambler Mining District that would run approximately 320 km along the southern edge of the western Brooks Range, crossing federal, state, and Native Corporation lands. Two alternative routes are being considered that cross the Kobuk Preserve portion of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, with the northern route running outside of but adjacent to Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. Both Kobuk Preserve and Gates of the Arctic Wilderness are managed by the National Park Service to preserve wilderness character under existing federal law and agency policy. This study evaluates the potential impacts of both routes on wilderness character in the Kobuk Preserve and adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. We use a hierarchical conceptual framework to identify spatially explicit measures that show the potential impacts of the road on wilderness character. The impacts from each measure are combined using a weighting scheme to generate a series of maps that quantify the potential impacts of these two proposed routes. Our results show that both routes would degrade wilderness character within the Kobuk Preserve, and that the northern route, which is the state’s preferred alternative for the road corridor, would have a significantly greater impact in terms of degrading wilderness character in the adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Brooks Range Alaska Arctic Institute of North America Arctic ARCTIC 74 4 469 481 |
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Arctic Institute of North America |
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description |
Northern Alaska is home to the largest designated wilderness landscape in the United States and among the world’s largest remaining roadless regions. Under the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a semi-public corporation of the state of Alaska, proposed an industrial road to access the Ambler Mining District that would run approximately 320 km along the southern edge of the western Brooks Range, crossing federal, state, and Native Corporation lands. Two alternative routes are being considered that cross the Kobuk Preserve portion of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, with the northern route running outside of but adjacent to Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. Both Kobuk Preserve and Gates of the Arctic Wilderness are managed by the National Park Service to preserve wilderness character under existing federal law and agency policy. This study evaluates the potential impacts of both routes on wilderness character in the Kobuk Preserve and adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. We use a hierarchical conceptual framework to identify spatially explicit measures that show the potential impacts of the road on wilderness character. The impacts from each measure are combined using a weighting scheme to generate a series of maps that quantify the potential impacts of these two proposed routes. Our results show that both routes would degrade wilderness character within the Kobuk Preserve, and that the northern route, which is the state’s preferred alternative for the road corridor, would have a significantly greater impact in terms of degrading wilderness character in the adjacent Gates of the Arctic Wilderness. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dawson, Natalie G. Tricker, James Landres, Peter |
spellingShingle |
Dawson, Natalie G. Tricker, James Landres, Peter Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
author_facet |
Dawson, Natalie G. Tricker, James Landres, Peter |
author_sort |
Dawson, Natalie G. |
title |
Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
title_short |
Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
title_full |
Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluating Potential Impacts of Proposed Industrial Access Road Routes on Wilderness Character in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska |
title_sort |
evaluating potential impacts of proposed industrial access road routes on wilderness character in gates of the arctic national park and preserve, alaska |
publisher |
The Arctic Institute of North America |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic73828 https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/download/73828/55356 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Brooks Range Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Brooks Range Alaska |
op_source |
ARCTIC volume 74, issue 4, page 469-481 ISSN 1923-1245 0004-0843 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic73828 |
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ARCTIC |
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74 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
469 |
op_container_end_page |
481 |
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1801371081774202880 |