Heat causes trouble for Svalbard’s seed vault

The unusual warm weather in Svalbard creates additional challenges for the global seed vault in Svalbard, Norway. At present, water in the entry area causes problems.

Svalbard’s global seed vault hosts seeds of more than 4,000 different plant species from around the world. Statsbygg, the Norwegian government’s public sector administration company in construction and property affairs, operates the vault, and improvements are a continual and long-lasting project.

Long-term work

Communications Director Hege Njaa Aschim of Statsbygg tells High North News that the rehabilitation process started last fall. At the same time a long-term project for accommodating further increase of temperatures commenced.

- The problems with water seeping through have arisen in the entrance areas, among others as a consequence of the high temperatures that Svalbard has seen over the past few years, Aschim says to High North News.

Removed heating source at the entrance

Water seeps in at the entrance area and slowly trickles downwards and inwards in the “Svalbard pipe”, approximately 10 meters inside the mountain. There it freezes and thus causes an ice problem for those who work in and with the vault.

- This water is, of course, not meant to be there, Aschim says. – Therefore we have, among other, removed a transformer, which is a source of heating, from this area. We have also conducted measuring in the mountain, in order to create a waterproof barrier across the vault and the entrance area.

Seeds not at risk

She points out that the water and ice problems do not threaten the vault itself, which lies deeper inside the mountain.

- However, there are obviously challenges in connection with the Svalbard permafrost. We cannot tell yet whether the climate changes cause this to continue and increase, but we have to take that possibility into account.

Manageable so far

Thus, we have to plan for the extreme. We are responsible for the seeds of the world, so you can definitely say that we are worried about the climate. But so far the challenges we have with water seeping through are manageable, says Hege Njaa Aschim.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault

In 2004, an international science organisation encouraged Norway to establish a security storage for seeds in Svalbard. The permafrost in the mountain, good infrastructure and the trust that Norway has earned as a bridge-builder in international work was among the reasons that made Svalbard relevant for such a purpose.

The seed vault was finished in 2008.

The seed vault has capacity to store up to 4.5 million seed samples. The seed vault in Svalbard is not an active gene bank, however, it contains duplicate collections that will only be put in use if seeds stored in national or regional gene banks were to be lost.

The construction is located at the foot of the Plateau Mountain in Svalbard.