Heritage Tools for Tackling Climate Change

Heritage managers everywhere increasingly observe climate-change related impacts to the resources of which they are stewards. Such observations provide notice that we must begin to manage cultural resources in new ways - to adapt to continuous change that we do not yet fully understand.

Climate change brings with it a diverse set of threats, huge and hydra-like in their complexity and ferocity. We may not fully understand the changes that the world is about to undergo,but the severity and immediacy of the many problems posed by those changes compels us to act. The disciplines associated with the management of cultural heritage have much to offer climate change response and adaptation planning. Heritage sites serve both as a source of information past humans’ adaptation to changing climate, and as tangible links between contemporary people, their cultural identities, communities, and important places.

This session presents an array of tools for managing cultural resources in the face of climate change so they may be shared and valued well into the future. The tools include identification of the diversity of potential impacts of climate change on resources, modeling of threats in GIS, crowdsourcing monitoring, and planning approaches to manage and address risk.