This deliverable reports on the creation of an online tool that allows access to a panarctic permafrost disturbance map. It contributes to the ‘Panarctic requirements-driven Permafrost Service’, one of the pilot services created as part of Arctic PASSION in work package 4. With permafrost warming at global scale, spatially explicit information on where and to what extent landscape changes that either drive permafrost thaw or impact permafrost stability occur in the Arctic is an important factor for land management, infrastructure planning, and climate change impact mitigation. Geospatial information on such disturbances is important and may facilitate appropriate measures for dealing with land degradation caused by permafrost thaw. Disturbances such as the erosion of coasts and rivers or the subsidence of land surface through thermokarst have direct and severe influence on the livelihoods, culture, and identity of arctic residents.

In this report, we present the detection of permafrost disturbances using an automated processing chain for freely accessible earth observation data and the application of a Tasseled Cap transform to derive robust trend parameters. In order to make the information available to local communities and INTERACT stations, we introduce the web-based application Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX). Based on experiences with a preliminary permafrost online tool in the form of a Google Earth Engine App, the new interface is tailored to the needs of users without scientific background. Through collaborations with community members the usefulness of the outcomes is ensured. Community evaluation and feedback are used to update the community-oriented maps.

Data dissemination based on internationally recognized standards and in conformance to the principles of FAIR data ensures an easy reuse of the panarctic disturbance data by scientists and other data portals. With the panarctic permafrost disturbance map an urgent need for permafrost information as part of a robust global observing system is met. For the first time, a coherent dataset on panarctic permafrost disturbance at high spatial resolution is produced and disseminated to the public. The results have the capability to substantially support planning and decision making in the Arctic.