ABSTRACT
Climate change impacts will increase in their frequency and severity in the coming decades, resulting in compromised integrity or destruction of thousands of heritage resources. Efforts are needed to identify, record, and study resources that will be affected. To set research and preservation priorities, the vulnerability of resources to climate change impacts and their importance to scientific research, preservation, and other resource values needs to be understood. We advocate a modelling approach which predicts the location, timing, and severity of climate change impacts; identifies resources at risk, their resource values, and opportunity costs; and prioritises research and preservation options based on these assessments. The need for this approach is illustrated with examples from two coastal areas subject to different impacts and hosting different types of heritage resources: the Atlantic coast of Georgia in the United States and the Wismar Bight along the Baltic Sea in northern Germany.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michael Heilen
Michael Heilen holds a PhD in anthropology (2005). He is Director of the Center for the Study of Cultural Landscapes at Statistical Research, Inc.
Jeffrey H. Altschul
Jeffrey H. Altschul holds a PhD in anthropology (1982). He is co-president of the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis, president of the SRI Foundation, and chairman of Nexus Heritage.
Friedrich Lüth
Friedrich Lüth holds a PhD in archaeology (1988). He is responsible for cultural property protection and site management at the German Archaeological Institute. He was a co-director of the SINCOS project.