An NPS Framework for Addressing Climate Change with Cultural Resources

Climate change presents many challenges to the stewardship of both cultural and natural resources. These include a wide range of environmental impacts on the resources, as well as the attendant effects on social systems, food security, and public health, among other sectors, now projected to continue long into the future (Pachauri et al. 2014). Addressing environ-mental impacts and social changes in resource management is not new, and existing tools of cultural and natural resource management remain relevant as we focus on climate change and its interactions with other existing challenges. Nonetheless, the uncertainty of how environ-mental impacts will vary in time, space, and intensity, as well as interact with each other and social trends, requires managers to use a broader range of information in decision-making. What follows is a framework for beginning to identify such information to inform cultural resources management and to support coordination between cultural, natural, and facilities management in the places, resources, and stewardship responsibilities they share. The US National Park Service (NPS) released its Climate Change Response Strategy in 2010, and is now developing a companion strategy document for cultural resources, which will provide additional guidance to assist with the interdisciplinary work and specific need