Management of Comprehensive Development of the Arctic Territory

Dear Colleagues,

The main reason for developing the Arctic region is its resources: About 30% of undiscovered natural gas resources and 13% of undiscovered oil resources, non-ferrous, rare and noble metals deposits are situated in the Arctic region. Moreover, the Arctic ocean is nowadays regarded as an important transport corridor.

• Interests of Asian countries in the Arctic region

Among Asian countries, India, China, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore demonstrate outstanding interest in studying the Arctic region. India has been a permanent observer in the Arctic Council since 2013. India puts forward an initiative of demilitarization and denuclearization of the Arctic region. China is also a permanent observer in the Arctic Council. For China the development of the country into a great maritime power is one of the priority growth areas. China has two key concepts of Arctic region development. The first concept is internationalization of the Arctic region as a common heritage of humanity. The second concept is the development of the “Northern Silk Road”: Control over the Arctic region means control over the world economy.

For the Russian Federation, the Arctic region is a traditional sphere of interest. The total area of Russian Arctic territory is over 6 million km². The area of Arctic maritime space inside territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation is over 3 million km². The land area of the Russian Arctic territory is about 18% of the total area of the country. Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic region provide the following priority directions of Arctic region development: Integrated socioeconomic development of the region, development of research and technologies, development of modern information and telecommunications infrastructure, and provision of environmental security.

• Climate and environmental conditions

The climate of Arctic deserts is extremely severe with strong winds, scarce precipitation and extremely low temperatures (average temperatures of the warmest month are about 0 °С. Snow cover on land territories holds throughout the year melting only for one or one and a half months.

• Natural resources deposits

According to experts’ estimates the Arctic region contains 58% of hydrocarbon resources of the World ocean. According to estimates, only Russian Arctic shelf contains about 100 milliard tons of oil equivalent. At present there are 46 discovered fields, among them 6 unique fields each containing over 500 million tons of oil equivalent. These are Shtokman gas and condensate field in the Barents sea, Leningrad and Russanov gas and condensate fields and Kamenny Cape gas field in the Kara sea, Lunsk oil and condensate field in the Sea of Okhotsk. These six fields contain 64% of discovered resources of Russian Arctic shelf. The Arctic region contains major fields of chemical, copper-nickel and iron ore raw materials, as well as noble and rare metals and rare earth elements.

• Socioeconomic development of the Arctic region

Development of the Arctic region is influenced by the following factors: a) extreme natural and climatic conditions including low temperatures, strong winds and ice cover on the surface of Arctic seas; b) cellular nature of industrial and economic development and underpopulation of the region; c) remoteness from major industrial centers; d) resource-intensiveness and dependence on fuel, food and basic consumer goods supplies from other Russian regions; and e) low sustainability of ecological systems influencing biological balance and the Earth’s climate and their dependence on human impact.

Thus, the Arctic region is interesting from economic, political and scientific points of view. Extreme climatic conditions require of special technologies and machines, different forms of government and life support, which increases researcher interest worldwide. The present Specia Issue contains the collection of scientific papers dedicated to the main directions of Arctic region development.

Dr. Yury Klochkov
Guest Editor

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• Arctic region
• extreme climatic condition
• climate and environmental conditions
• natural resources deposits
• socioeconomic development