Arctic human settlements experience formidable challenges from accelerating climate change and environmental transformations. While these towns have demonstrated adaptive resilience, the looming threat of local climate extremes raises concerns about the results of adaptation and mitigation efforts. With the further development of Arctic settlements, it is necessary to consider changes in local climatic conditions, shifting the adaptation focus from regional to local scales. The local climate perspective in this literature synthesis study is built upon constraints from physical climatology, focused on the climate and environment within and around the town of Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The study provides insights into Longyearbyen’s local climate dynamics, including physical mechanisms, climate localisation, factors and trends, as well as their implications. Three model pathways for development are discussed, centred on (1) industrial development, (2) public services, and (3) tourism and conservation. This categorisation is introduced to distinguish development scenario sensitivity to the local climate effects. The synthesis indicates that any development concentrated spatially will amplify local warming and climate change, as positive climate feedback predominate. The study emphasises the need for a comprehensive understanding of the environmental factors sustaining local climatic anomalies.

In 2021, the decision to close the last Norwegian coal mine on Svalbard was made, and with that, the Norwegian coal adventure on the archipelago came to an end. This was a result of a political process, which is the focus of this article. Drawing on fieldwork conducted during the fall of 2022, I argue that the political process of phasing out coal changed from a conflict over interests to a contest over symbolic capital. The article contributes to the understanding of Norwegian Svalbard politics and the “balancing act” that this represents. I focus on how power, in the form of shaping people’s perceptions and as prestige, influenced what interests prevail and why. The article addresses (1) why the decision to phase out coal was not made earlier, (2) what ultimately made this decision possible and (3) why and over what the key actors were still competing after the decision to phase out coal was made.

The Svalbard Treaty established Norway’s full and absolute sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. At the same time, it also established special territorial status for the archipelago, providing nationals of all signatory nations equal access to its resources. During fieldwork in Longyearbyen, conducted as part of a bottom-up exploration of place in 2018, several recurring issues came up in the analysis of interviews with residents using grounded theory methodology. Two of these issues, sometimes linked and sometimes seen as separate, were a questioning of the legitimacy of the community and a sense of geopolitical vulnerability. These emerging categories led to a series of focus groups, conducted between December 2018 and November 2019, that was designed to explore the impacts and implications of the Svalbard Treaty through the articulation of residents’ lived experiences in Longyearbyen. This paper examines the findings that emerged within an Identity of Place framing that point to an inherent conflict between the Svalbard Treaty’s special territorial status and the possibility of establishing a fully functioning local democracy in Longyearbyen.

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork data, this article argues there is tension between how Longyearbyen’s residents wish to perform as a community and hindrances the town inherited from its past and accepts as demarcation lines of Norway’s Svalbard politics. The population of Longyearbyen has undergone considerable change since the 1990s, turning from a predominantly Norwegian mining community into a highly diversified group of people from all over the world. This article places Longyearbyen into the wider context of settlements with similar traces (in Scandinavia, the Arctic, multilingual and immigrant communities worldwide, or in the context of extractivism) and discusses the existing barriers of communitification. Encounters with four participants illuminate the tensions and contradictions when it comes to cultivating social cohesion and shaping Longyearbyen’s “desired futures.” Unless the process of increasing the community’s agency is actively encouraged by people living there and those governing it from the outside, the future of the settlement risks being alienating for its inhabitants, weakening further the communitification potential.

Longyearbyen, Svalbard, has become showcase of Arctic climate change. However, we know little about how these changes are dealt with locally. This article aims to fill this gap by examining climate change impacts and adaptation in a non-Indigenous “community of experts” and sets out to 1) describe observed changes and perceived societal impacts of climate change and 2) discuss adaptation measures and related understandings of adaptation. The research consists of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with planners, engineers, architects, scientists, construction workers and local politicians. The research finds that climate change impacts the built environment in Longyearbyen, and that there is vast awareness of and concern related to these impacts. There is a substantial knowledge base for adaptation, and a special trust in scientific knowledge, skills and experts. The interview partners consider adaptation as necessary and feasible. Adaptation is understood and implemented as technical responses to physical problems, rooted in a modernist understanding of the environment as separated from humans, who can control it through technical means. This suggests a narrow understanding of adaptation that might fail to address more socially transformative processes.

The archipelago of Svalbard is a good example of an Arctic locale undergoing rapid changes on multiple levels. This contribution is a joint effort of three anthropologists with up-to-date ethnographic data from Svalbard (mostly Longyearbyen and Barentsburg) to frame and interpret interconnected changes. The processes impacting Svalbard are related to issues such as geopolitical interests, and increasing pressure by the Norwegian government to exercise presence and control over the territory. Our interpretations are based on a bottom-up approach, drawing on experiences living in the field. We identify three great ruptures in recent years – the avalanche of 2015, the gradual phasing out of mining enterprises and the COVID-19 pandemic – and show how they further impact, accelerate or highlight preexisting vulnerabilities in terms of socio-economic development, and environmental and climate change. We discuss the shift from coal mining to the industries of tourism, education, and research and development, and the resulting changed social and demographic structure of the settlements. Another facet is the complexity of environmental drivers of change and how they relate to the socio-economic ones. This article serves as an introductory text to the collection of articles published in Polar Record in 2021/2022 with the overarching theme “changing Svalbard”. Issues discussed range from socio-economic change and its implications for local populations including identity of place, through tourism (value creation, mediation, human–environment relations, environmental dilemmas, balancing contradictory trends), to security and risk perception, and environmental and climate change issues.

Geopolitical interventions since the end of the 1980s—such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, a decline in the activities of state-owned coal companies, and governmental initiatives to increase tourism activities—have affected the community viability of two main settlements on Svalbard: Barentsburg and Longyearbyen. This paper explores how the residents of these settlements (with different cultural backgrounds) perceive the effects of socioeconomic transitions on community viability. The analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of Barentsburg (n = 62) and Longyearbyen (n = 36) reveals the residents’ perceptions of the pace of the transition and the changing community composition. New types of commercial activities, such as tourism, contribute to local value creation and socioeconomic development but come with concerns grounded in community fluctuation, environmental protection, economic prioritisation, and power relationships. Compared to Longyearbyen, Barentsburg has undergone relatively minor demographic and social changes and remains stable in terms of culture, language, and management practices. We conclude that the viability of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg during the transition was affected by community dynamics and fluctuations, social relationships within and between communities, and local institutional practices.

Soil is one of the most important constituents of an ecosystem, playing a crucial role in many environmental reactions and processes. Despite the fact that many environmental studies were conducted in the vicinity of Longyearbyen, very little is known about the physical and chemical properties as well as mineralogy of soils occurring in this town. Thus, the main aims of this study were: (1) to determine the texture, chemical properties and mineralogy of the topsoil horizons of urban soils occurring in the Longyearbyen area (Spitsbergen, Norway); and (2) to determine and explain their spatial distribution within the area of Longyearbyen. In general, the topsoils are characterised by loamy texture; acidic reaction; quite high content of total organic carbon (TOC); high content of Si, Al and Fe; and low content of K, Na, Ca, Mg and P. Quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase, mica and chlorite are the prevailing minerals. Differences in the concentration of TOC, total nitrogen and elements in the topsoils are mainly related to the diversity of texture and mineralogy of the local parent material and the development of vegetation cover. The results indicate that topsoils in Longyearbyen are characterised by the natural properties and are not strongly transformed by human activity. However, pollution of soil with trace elements related to coal mining should be checked.