Parkaeology and climate change: Assessing the vulnerability of archaeological resources at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Alaska

Abstract

The United States National Park Service (NPS) recognizes that cultural resources are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts because such resources are fixed on the landscape, cannot be replaced, and, if lost, lost permanently. To reduce the threat of climate change on cultural resources, Goal 7 in the Climate Change Response Strategy requests individual national parks to develop, prioritize and implement management strategies to preserve cultural resources vulnerable to climate change impacts. The NPS’s response strategy for climate change impacts includes four pillars: the science pillar identifies and tracks impacts of climate change on cultural heritage; the adaptation pillar develops management strategies to the threats identified in the science pillar; the mitigation pillar incorporates cultural heritage into energy efficient planning; and the communication pillar develops multiple communication pathways concerning information from the other three pillars. We present new research integrating three of the four pillars; science, adaptation, and communication; to identify climate change threats to cultural resource, assess the potential impact of threats, and prioritize management strategies within the US federal land management area of Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (KLGO), southeast Alaska. At KLGO, climate change threats include fluvial channel instability along glacier-fed rivers, increasing potential of glacial lake outburst floods and changing preservation conditions in alpine environments. Each cultural resource is threatened in different ways, requiring management strategies to be resource-specific. Current adaptation strategies include monitoring, documentation, and interpretation.