Forecasting Climate Change Impacts and Resource Values to Set Preservation and Research Priorities

Summary

Globally, climate change represents one of the largest impending threats to archaeological research and heritage preservation. Rising sea levels and increased storm intensity will cause inundation and erosion of coastal and island resources across the globe. Climate change impacts will increase in their frequency and severity in the coming decades, resulting in compromised integrity or outright destruction of thousands of heritage resources, many of which may never be identified before they are gone. Efforts are needed now to understand the extent of the problem; to identify, record, and save what can be rescued; and to study important resources that will be lost. To set research and preservation priorities, the vulnerability of resources to specific climate change impacts and their relative importance to scientific research, preservation, and other resource values needs to be understood. To this end, we advocate a modeling approach that predicts the location, timing, and severity of climate change impacts; identifies resources at risk, their resource values, and opportunity costs; and prioritizes research and preservation options based on these assessments. We highlight our work with two case studies, one from the Atlantic coast of the United States and one from the Baltic Sea region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Burning Libraries: Environmental Impacts on Heritage and Science   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16002