Optimizing preservation for multiple types of historic structures under climate change

Abstract (from Landscape and Urban Planning): Cultural resources in coastal parks and recreation areas are vulnerable to climate change. The US National Park Service (NPS) is facing the challenge of insufficient budget allocations for both maintenance and climate adaptation of historic structures. Research on adaptation planning for cultural resources has predominately focused on vulnerability assessments of heritage sites; however, few studies integrate multiple factors (e.g., vulnerability, cultural significance, use potential, and costs) that managers should consider when making tradeoff decisions about which cultural resources to prioritize for adaptation. Moreover, heritage sites typically include multiple...

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Gulf Islands National Seashore Regional Sediment Budget Research and Data Needs: Workshop Series Summary

Executive Summary The National Park Service (NPS), in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), recognizes the need to quantify the sediment budget of the barrier islands within the Gulf Islands National Seashore (GINS) to understand the coastal processes affecting island resiliency. To achieve this goal, identifying and quantifying the physical parameters that drive long-term change is necessary to model the processes that are both generative and terminal in island evolution and capture island response to long-term human alteration and climatic patterns. For example, measuring change across periods of storminess is more effective at assessing island resiliency than measuring change resulting from...

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Final Report: Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore

Barrier islands are subject to natural and anthropogenic changes, such as hurricanes, sea level rise and dredging. These changes can influence the persistence of natural and cultural resources. For example, a single storm event can drastically alter barrier islands, damaging or destroying cultural resources and impacting (either negatively or positively) habitat. Moreover, dredging can change the natural rates of lateral sand transport and placement of dredge materials can also influence natural rates of lateral sand transport, both of which can have positive (sand accretion) or negative (sand erosion). These changes to barrier islands can also influence the ability of the islands’ dunes to serve as a first-line...

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