Coastal Erosion and Extreme Atmospheric Events: Climate Change and Coastal Cultural Heritage in Puerto Rico

Summary

Islands and coastal zones preserve the cultural heritage of maritime traditions and livelihoods. The expected environmental impacts linked to climate change present a severe threat to their preservation, placing heritage at risk of being completely lost, possibly in an instant. Coastal cultural heritage in Puerto Rico has been the focus of research for the last two years, starting with a risk assessment, and continuing with plans for monitoring, documentation and possible intervention. However, the severity of climate change and the intensity of recent extreme events highlights the urgency of these tasks and outpace the research to document and preserve the contexts that have survived until now. This presentation provides an update on the work undertaken on Puerto Rican coastal heritage, contextualizing our progress within the effects that Hurricane Irma had on some of the known and threatened coastal heritage sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21430