Assessing and Communicating Natural Disaster Threats with Digital Technologies

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Recent Directions in Florida’s Historical Archaeology", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Digital archaeology provides a powerful method for communicating the threats associated with natural disasters and sea level rise to the public. Static graphics often fail to capture public imagination, and attention to these issues is increasingly problematic as threats are unnecessarily politicized. Digital archaeology, and specifically interactive virtual reconstructions of threatened landscapes, offers one solution for engaging public perceptions in ways to go beyond maps or other 2D representations. This paper discusses recent work in the town of Cedar Key, Florida, where a virtual reconstruction of the entire town allows users to interact with heritage resources threatened by climate change in an immersive environment. Methods associated with reconstructing the town will be discussed, including the use of Sanborn maps, local museum archives, and LiDAR. In addition, open-source software was used to model storm surge, which can be publicly accessed via interactive maps and the virtual world.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Directions in Florida’s Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow