Close
Empowering Our Communities to Map Rough Ice and Slush for Safer Sea-ice Travel in Inuit Nunangat
Our Inuit-led project team combines satellite and drone sensor data, with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit to generate new data layers for community ice travel safety maps (SmartICE鈥檚 Sikumik Qaujimajjuti).
11 September 2024
The challenge
Sea-ice roughness, thickness and slush are key characteristics that determine safe and efficient ice travel for Inuit. The changing climate is negatively affecting these characteristics, impacting mental health, food security and cultural practices.
For Inuit, sea ice is a hunting platform, a travel highway, and part of our culture and identity. Changing climate is negatively affecting sea-ice characteristics that determine safe and efficient travel for Inuit, such as roughness, thickness, and slush. Consequently, there are increased travel incidents, search-and-rescue incidents, and impacts on mental health, food security, and cultural practices.
Expected impact
- To combine satellite data (optical and micro-wave frequencies), state-of-the-art uncrewed airborne vehicles (UAVs, or drones), and most importantly Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit knowledge, values, and worldview) to co-produce new information on sea-ice roughness, snow roughness, and slush for SmartICE鈥檚 Sikumik Qaujimajjuti ().
- To produce maps for piloting in our partner communities and eventually expand across Inuit Nunangat.
- To ground the work in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and include a co-designed Inuit training program for UAV-based sea-ice monitoring to augment the mature environmental data collection developed by SmartICE.
- With our Arctic Eider Society partner, to enable Inuit Nunangat communities to access in near real-time these new map products through the Indigenous Knowledge Social Network platform.
Funding details
CINUK: Canada-Inuit Nunangat-United Kingdom Arctic Research Programme
Project team
Principal Investigator 鈥撀�Andrew Arreak and Michel Tsamados
Project coordinators and co-applicants:
- Becky Segal
- Carl Thibault
- Constanza Sof铆a Salv贸
- Eldred Allen
- Emily Best
- Emma Dalton
- Emma Nicholson
- Gillian Davidge
- Grant MacDonald
- Ilan Kelman
- Jimmy Poulin
- Katherine Wilson
- Leanne Beaulieu
- Lynn Moorman
- Mark Croke
- Monique Bernier
- Randy Scharien
- Rex Holwell
- Robert Briggs
- Saeid Homayouni
- Shawna Dicker
- Thomas Newman
- Tom Johnson
- Trevor Bell
- William Aglukkaq
More information
Image:聽Baffin Island sea and land ice. Photography by Ilan Kelman