This master's project focuses on the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) in the western Canadian Arctic, which is experiencing environmental changes that affect subsistence harvesting practices and are of concern to local communities. In order to assess the impacts of multiple disturbances on culturally important ecosystems in the ISR, researchers created a cumulative disturbance map that represents relative intensity of terrestrial disturbances across the study region. They assessed levels of disturbance in harvesting and management areas, modeled future disturbance scenarios, and assessed the potential for conserving large contiguous areas of unaffected harvesting lands.

This project is part of an holistic approach to assess impacts of climate change on Arctic terrestrial ecosystems. It focuses on current, short-term phenotypic, and longer-term genetic responses of plant, animal (including caribou) and microorganism species to a changing climate and UV-B regime. Information in the study is taken from indigenous observations, scientific monitoring, experiments and models.