Cultural Heritage and Climate Change

Climate Adaptation Data Week
April 13	Localizing Sea Level Rise Projections for Decision-Makers
April 14	Assessing National Park Asset Flood Risk: Retreat, Adapt, Fortify?
April 15	Cultural Heritage and Climate Change
April 16	Bridging the Gap Between Science and Decision-Making
April 17	Weather and Social Data to Inform Participatory Planning Initiatives
Climate Adaptation Data Week Overview

Dr. Marcy Rockman, ICOMOS-IPCC Scientific Coordinator for the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group and Climate Researcher with Co-Equal, spoke about the intersection of cultural heritage and climate change. Based on her new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article on historical and cultural heritage, she shared recommendations on how agencies could better incorporate historical and cultural considerations into the U.S. response to climate change, with attention to the need to better compile and use relevant data. 

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

Dr. Marcy Rockman, ICOMOS-IPCC Scientific Coordinator for the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group and Climate Researcher with Co-Equal

Download briefing transcript

• Rockman and co-author Carrie Hritz published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 13 titled, “Expanding Use of Archaeology in Climate Change Response by Changing its Social Environment.”
• The article addresses the use of archaeological data in climate change responses. It was driven by experiences working with the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Census Bureau that revealed roadblocks in connecting archaeology to climate change research and planning.
• Humans inhabit both a natural environment and a social environment. The social environment is created by human interactions, perceptions, beliefs, etc., and shapes the kind of actions that are acceptable or desirable.
• For example, the call at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP24 to increase social and political ambition to act on climate change was for changes to the social environment.
• Archaeology is a way to understand the intersections between the natural and social environments across time and space and can inform the global climate change response in a variety of ways.
  • Historical documents and archaeological records have shown that humans have been sustainably managing wildlife resources near a lake in Iceland since the first settlements in the tenth century. This data is a model of a sustainable relationship between natural and social environments that has been maintained on a millennial scale.
  • In Lowell, Massachusetts, one of the first sites of industrial processes in the United States, archaeological records can be used to trace the history of the economic, labor, and social systems that created climate change and how changing social priorities have affected the natural environment.
  • The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) drives the designation of historic places in the United States, and outlines criteria for identifying nationally regulated historic places. These protocols can be applied to the global climate response as a way to determine which areas are important to preserve.
• The domestic and international responses to climate change have gaps in their attention to social science and archaeological data and methods.
• There is no federal agency with a named requirement for preserving cultural heritage sites, and the National Park Service reduced funding and staffing for cultural resource preservation between 1995 and 2008.
  • The United States’ fragmented approach to cultural preservation limits the capacity to address the intersections between climate change and cultural heritage.
  • Climate-oriented nongovernmental organizations also rarely address archaeology or cultural heritage.
• Ways to better incorporate cultural heritage into domestic and international climate change responses include the following:
  • Found a named federal climate heritage coordination office.
  • Link archaeology and heritage in climate research and investment.
  • Foster climate heritage demonstration projects.
  • Expand climate NGO attention to archaeology and heritage.

 

Q&A Session

 

What are the unique data needs for climate adaptation planning in archaeological and historic cultural sites?

One of the biggest challenges is gathering enough observations to understand the full scale of what climate change will do to archaeological and heritage sites. We know of impacts like erosion, storm surges, and hurricanes, but have found that some sites are being affected by impacts that we did not anticipate, such as saltwater inundating historic sites from the bottom up. We need to balance tracking the impacts we know about with the impacts that we cannot see.

 

Is there a georeferenced national database for historical or archaeological sites that could be used on a national basis to track vulnerability? If not, what barriers exist to that happening?

There is a database of nationally-registered historic sites. The challenge is developing a database of archaeological sites, because specific location information is confidential to protect the sites.

 

The presentation dealt mainly with the federal level, but a lot of historic preservation work is done at the state level. How could surveying and mapping in state and tribal offices be improved, and how could data at this level be used to improve climate change resilience planning?

I’m sure they need more funding. State offices are limited in the extent to which they are able to do research themselves, and most information comes from development projects following NHPA requirements to survey for heritage sites before breaking ground. One challenge the NPS has faced is trying to balance caring for places already identified with looking for new sites that might be at risk.

 

Is there any newer data on trends for NPS funding and staffing for cultural resources versus natural resources?

The most recent published data is from 2008, but based on my experience working in the NPS from 2011-2018, the gap was not improving.

 

What countries are leading the way in incorporating cultural stewardship into climate adaptation, and what lessons can the United States draw from international work?

Scotland has done a tremendous job in understanding risks to cultural heritage sites, especially along the coast. The Scottish Coastal Archaeology Program has done a great job at collecting data and monitoring coastal sites through a citizen science program. Since archeological site locations are not public information in the United States, we could not take the same approach—but groups are working to incorporate some of the lessons from Scotland. For example the Florida Public Archaeology Network has worked closely with Scotland to draw whatever practices they can into their public archaeology projects. At an international level, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) is coordinating action and working to hold an expert meeting on cultural heritage and climate change with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This would be the first step towards starting an IPCC special report on cultural heritage and climate. The current pandemic is showing how important our connections to each other are, and we could bring this understanding of the social environment to the climate world.