International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (INTERACT)

Environmental change and particularly amplified global climate change are accelerating in the Arctic. These changes already affect local residents and feedback from the Arctic’s land surface to the climate system, will have global implications. However, climate change and its impacts are variable throughout the wide environmental and land use envelopes of the Arctic. Unfortunately, the Arctic is generally remote, sparsely populated and research and monitoring activities are more restricted in time and space than elsewhere. This limitation comes when there is a rapidly expanding need for knowledge as well as increasing technological opportunities to make data collection in the field and accessibility more efficient.

INTERACT was an infrastructure project funded by the EU, which had as main objective to build capacity for identifying, understanding, predicting and responding to diverse environmental changes throughout the wide environmental and land-use envelopes of the Arctic. The 5-year project aimed to establish partnerships between research stations and to develop and deploy new observation technologies.

INTERACT promoted research activity by increasing researcher access to the Arctic. The project has achieved that the number of research stations has risen to 77 from 19 countries and form a circumarctic network of terrestrial field bases in northern Europe, Russia, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland as well as stations in northern alpine areas. INTERACT stations host around 5000 scientists from around the world who work on projects within the fields of glaciology, permafrost, climate, ecology, biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling. The increased and coordinated activities at the stations have provided valuable scientific information, also feeding into major regional and global assessments of environmental changes, such as those related to climate, biodiversity and land use.