The transdisciplinary synthesis will further elaborate on results from all other parts of the project and will use the full expertise of the FACE-IT team. Viewing fjords as local social-ecological systems nested in larger-scale social and environmental processes, emphasizes that long-term sustainability of local livelihoods and tourism, biodiversity and ecosystem functions require an adaptive co-management approach that recognizes a diversity of perspectives and interests, including gender. Underpinning this task is the question of what it will take to sustainably manage changing, complex and coupled social-ecological systems in Arctic fjords in ways that contribute to sustainability locally, regionally and a global context.

It will be examined how social and ecological drivers interact. Building on scenario work undertaken in the parts of the project researching on livelihoods and tourism, this synthesis will, in a second scenario workshop, specifically analyse the implications of different management options, including their links to the national policy contexts, with a focus on ensuring that food production and tourism in Arctic fjord systems are sustainable in socio-economic and environmental terms. Thus, decision-makers will be involved across the local and national levels.

Together with FACE-IT researchers, local, regional and national decision-makers will identify management options that are robust under rapid change and uncertainty, including potential shifts in ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity and changes in the socio-economic and political contexts of local decision making. By exploring the implications of different management options locally and nationally through a process of coproduction of knowledge, the transdisciplinary synthesis will facilitate the development of an adaptive co-management framework.