A systematic review of infrastructure systems and their interconnections in Alaska: implications for service improvement

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract Infrastructure service provision in Alaska is shaped by remoteness, challenging environmental conditions, and workforce constraints that contribute to high costs, limited access, and system vulnerabilities. Despite the increasing attention to Arctic and sub-Arctic infrastructure, existing research remains fragmented, with a limited understanding of how system-specific challenges are interconnected. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic literature review of 78 infrastructure-focused journal publications to examine: (1) the primary challenges affecting infrastructure system provision in Alaska across financial, technical, environmental, and human dimensions, and (2) how challenges in one system are influenced by the performance of others, including how they cascade across systems. This review shows that challenges in the literature are unevenly distributed across infrastructure systems. Prior public health studies emphasize human and workforce-related challenges, transportation and communication studies emphasize technical constraints, and water and energy studies reflect a combination of financial, technical, and human challenges. Cross-system analysis identified recurring pathways in which transportation costs and delays, energy reliability and cost, communication limitations, and water access shape the performance of other systems. These findings show that infrastructure problems in Alaska are not only system-specific vulnerabilities, but also cross-system service provision challenges. This study contributes an integrated synthesis of fragmented Alaska infrastructure literature and identifies evidence-informed pathways for service improvement, including cross-system collaboration, efficient resource allocation, multi-system analysis, systematic risk assessment, and culturally responsive planning.