The NPS Cultural Resources Climate Change Impacts Table

Summary

The US National Park Service (NPS) is actively preparing for climate change and its current and potential effects across all of the cultural resources for which it has responsibility for management and guidance. These include archeological resources, cultural landscape, ethnographic resources, museum objects, and structures and buildings. However, the agency currently lacks data detailing how cultural resources will be affected by changing climates. To address this gap in knowledge, the NPS Climate Change Response Program in collaboration with the Cultural Resources Partnerships, and Science Directorate has prepared the NPS Cultural Resources Climate Change Impacts Table. This table provides detailed information exhibiting how climate change can or may affect cultural resources, organized by major observable climate change phenomena (e.g. sea level rise, temperature change) across each type of cultural resource. This will be an invaluable tool for park managers and NPS partners to identify both the dramatic and the subtle impacts in order to prepare and plan for the continued protection, preservation, and documentation of resources in an uncertain future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Heritage Tools for Tackling Climate Change

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