How Will the National Park Service Protect America’s Heritage from Climate Change?

San Francisco’s Embarcadero district, which
includes the Beaux Arts style Ferry Building,
is at risk from sea level rise and flooding.

Marcy Rockman, an archaeologist with the National Park Service (NPS) likes to say that “Every place has a climate story.” And telling those stories, as well as effectively responding to the growing risks, is central to an ambitious new strategy to manage the nation’s cultural resources in a rapidly changing climate.

The Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy (CRCCS) was just published on January 6; Rockman was the lead author. It addresses climate change across the National Park System and is aimed at helping park managers and scientists plan and implement responses, and not least, communicate the scale of the problem to the public.

NPS Director Jon Jarvis, who retired this week, called climate change “fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever experienced.” During his tenure he positioned the park service as a leader and innovator among US agencies in responding to the climate challenge.

The NPS has established climate monitoring and impact assessment programs and in 2009 established a multi-disciplinary Climate Change Response Program. In 2010, the NPS published its first Climate Change Response Strategy, laying out the four pillars of a comprehensive approach: science, adaptation, mitigation, and communication.

Read what has been written by the deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at Union of Concerned Scientists, Adam Markham - “How Will the National Park Service Protect America’s Heritage from Climate Change?”