In this blog, I will assign each of you a community from small settlements across Alaska. Your approach will be different than the study of Shishmaref. Here, you will be describing the physical and human geography of the settlement as well as making a projection on what might happen to it in the future.
Blog 5a will examine where your settlement is situated in relation to physical geography.
Develop the description and analysis of your settlement in relation to:
- Physiography
- Climate
- Permafrost
- Ecoregions
- Natural Hazards and what conclusions do you make regarding the hazardousness of the settlement.
Blog 5b:
In Blog 5b, we will be considering the second set of human geography themes:
- Resource Economy: Multi-Booms, Fishing & Mining
- Resource Economy: Oil and Gas, Transportation, Tourism
Here are some general questions for your consideration. You don’t have to answer all of these points and you may wish to highlight some other factors:
- Which, if any, of the resource “booms’ was (were) important in your settlement? Is there any indication today of the impact of these booms?
- Is your settlement located near any mining activity or potential mining activity (e.g. Pebble)? How might that location proximity be of significance?
- Is your settlement a fishing community? If so how is that reflected in some way?
- What is the energy source for electricity and heat in your settlement? Significance?
- How is your settlement connected to the larger region and Anchorage? Consider transportation systems, settlement size and the economic region in which it is located. (See Lesson 13, Figure 13.3. Alaska Economic Regions.)
- Is there any tourism activity here? Potential?
NOTE: Your discussion should be 3 pages in length.
Below is the set of web sites on settlement Information:
- General Community https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/dcra/DCRAExternal/
- Community Profile maps: https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/web/dcra/PlanningLandManagement/CommunityProfileMaps.aspx
- Interactive Mapping: https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/web/dcra/PlanningLandManagement/InteractiveMapping.aspx
- Community Photos: https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/dcra/dcrarepoext/Pages/PhotoLibrary.aspx
- Energy Sources and interactive map and satellite imagery: https://www.akenergyefficiencymap.org/#
I encourage you to look at some of the other settlement studies by your colleagues. Comparing settlements in different regions should be quite interesting.
25 points
Create a new post to complete this assignment. DON’T FORGET to assign it to the Blog 5 category.