Deciphering Cultural Landscape Heritage in the Time of Climate Change

Traditionally, cultural landscape heritage, and the concept of significance, has been a measure of association with important movements, styles, or people in American history. In addition, physical condition, intactness, or integrity informed by historic circumstances have been important. This analytical process has relied on a foundational belief in a stable environmental context. It is now appropriate to add another dimension to that equation, based on the impact of climate change variables on landscape form and process. The investigation of the integration of climate data and landscape circumstances, based on three cultural landscape case studies, reveals the need to rethink our understanding of landscape context and what is meant by “landscape heritage.” The three case studies, all in U.S. national parks, were selected based on a diversity of ecological contexts and cultural landscape types. Viewed as a set, they reveal a common array of questions and approaches to addressing a major revision in our conceptualization of cultural landscape heritage, especially in light of many future contextual uncertainties, and the ways in which those uncertainties challenge the normalized view of cultural landscape process and integrity.