MURMANSK, April 19. /TASS/. Scientists suggest organizing a Russian permafrost monitoring system based on results of studies in the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk Regions under the Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition. Benefits of the public-private partnership (PPP) approach will offer a combination of state tasks and capabilities of companies operating in permafrost territories, the Arctic Research Center's leader Oleg Volkov told TASS.
"We will report it is necessary to create a permafrost monitoring system that would involve both state authorities and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as private companies working in the digital technologies sector, state corporations operating in permafrost territories," he said.
According to scientists, the geotechnical monitoring system will predict timely destruction risks of residential apartment buildings and industrial facilities, built on permafrost. Specialists refer to the example of the Murmansk Region, where studies have found different rates of permafrost degradation, which was considered perennial only a few decades earlier, and where the degradation dynamics was ignored in construction of many facilities in the Arctic. The global warming trend in the northern hemisphere does not explain many of the processes occurring with perennially frozen soils, and constant monitoring is necessary, the expert added.
"More than half of this country's territory is on permafrost. Practically nowhere in the world buildings higher than one floor are built on permafrost," leader of the expedition's headquarters Oksana Tolstykh told TASS. "In the USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, they prefer to build on rocky foundations, therefore, it is Russia that will have to organize a detailed monitoring of processes in permafrost soils."
The form of public-private partnership in the creation of a geotechnical monitoring system will combine efforts of private developers of equipment and software, working in permafrost territories, with the state information storage functions and state tasks in scientific research. The scientists plan to voice their ideas at a meeting on this system, due at the Federation Council in late April.
About Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition
The Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition kicked off from Murmansk in August, 2023. It conducts scientific research throughout the Arctic within the framework of state assignments or grants from a number of the Russian Academy of Sciences' institutes. This expedition explores routes and conducts initial studies for a cycle of the Academy's expeditions in 2024-2030. The expedition participants are testing Russian vehicles, communications equipment, outfit and insulation materials under the program to replace earlier imported products for the country's Arctic Zone. The expedition results will act as the basis for a new wave of the Russian Arctic's scientific exploration and will present to the research community new methods and technologies in continental scientific expeditions.
TASS is the expedition's general information partner.