2. Methods
As there already exists a notable amount of research that includes projections for future climate change and biophysical impacts, the Balancing Act project aimed to assess and synthesize this existing knowledge and deliver it to the tourism industry. During an input meeting with key actors from the tourism industry (representatives from tourism industry organizations and the destination marketing organization (DMO)), salient categories of climate change and impacts were identified. This then informed the selection of literature for review.
Based on the above-mentioned input meeting, the authors defined five categories of climate change impacts relevant for tourism and divided responsibility for literature review within these categories. The categories were: 1) ecosystem change, including marine and terrestrial ecosystems 2) sea temperature and sea ice change; 3) natural hazards; and 4) other changes, including temperature, precipitation and glacier changes. The point of departure for the review was existing climate change and climate change impact assessment reports, such as the “Climate in Svalbard 2100” report by the Norwegian Climate Service Centre (Hanssen-Bauer et al. 2019) and the “Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic” report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP 2017). We reviewed both scientific reports and peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters.