Synthesis: Three Decades of Research on Socioeconomic Effects Related to Offshore Petroleum Development in Coastal Alaska

摘要

This book synthesizes three decades of social research, between 1975 and 2004, related to the potential effects of offshore oil development on the peoples of Alaska. The U.S. Department of Interior Minerals Management Service (MMS), through its Environmental Studies Program (ESP) within the Leasing and Environment Division, funded most Alaska social science research in the 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1975 and 2004, this program produced 167 technical and nine special social and economic reports. The first objective of this introduction is to describe the social research component of the Alaska ESP program. An explanation of how the federal government initially designed the social component of the ESP and how it evolved will help the reader to understand how the federal government intended the different types of studies to fit together. It will also provide useful background information for the reader to understand better the discussions of the technical reports in the following chapters. The second objective in this chapter is to familiarize the reader with the other primary sponsors of social science research in Alaska, and to demonstrate how the different streams of research funding have complemented each other.