The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective: a northern-driven mapping collaborative toward understanding the effects of permafrost thaw

• Published in: Arctic Science
• Main Authors: Steven V. Kokelj, Tristan Gingras-Hill, Seamus V. Daly, Peter D. Morse, Stephen A. Wolfe, Ashley C.A. Rudy, Jurjen van der Sluijs, Niels Weiss, H. Brendan O'Neill, Jennifer L. Baltzer, Trevor C. Lantz, Carolyn Gibson, Dieter Cazon, Robert H. Fraser, Duane G. Froese, Garfield Giff, Charles Klengenberg, Scott F. Lamoureux, William L. Quinton, Merritt R. Turetsky, Alexandre Chiasson, Celtie Ferguson, Mike Newton, Mike Pope, Jason A. Paul, M. Alice Wilson, Joseph M. Young
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 2023
• Subjects: permafrost; thermokarst; periglacial; terrain sensitivity; climate change; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Environmental engineering; TA170-171; Canada; Northwest Territories; Arctic; Thermokarst
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2023-0009; https://doaj.org/article/7e959053e1274990987f61640773f364

This paper documents the first comprehensive inventory of thermokarst and thaw-sensitive terrain indicators for a 2 million km2 region of northwestern Canada. This is accomplished through the Thermokarst Mapping Collective (TMC), a research collaborative to systematically inventory indicators of permafrost thaw sensitivity by mapping and aerial assessments across the Northwest Territories (NT), Canada. The increase in NT-based permafrost capacity has fostered science leadership and collaboration with government, academic, and community researchers to enable project implementation. Ongoing communications and outreach have informed study design and strengthened Indigenous and stakeholder relationships. Documentation of theme-based methods supported mapper training, and flexible data infrastructure facilitated progress by Canada-wide researchers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The TMC inventory of thermokarst and thaw-sensitive landforms agree well with fine-scale empirical mapping (69%–84% accuracy) and aerial inventory (74%–96% accuracy) datasets. National- and circumpolar-scale modelling of sensitive permafrost terrain contrasts significantly with TMC outputs, highlighting their limitations and the value of empirically based mapping approaches. We demonstrate that the multiparameter TMC outputs support a holistic understanding and refined depictions of permafrost terrain sensitivity, provide novel opportunities for regional syntheses, and inform future modelling approaches, which are urgently required to comprehend better what permafrost thaw means for Canada's North.