Integrating Components of Resilient Systems into Cultural Landscape Management Practices

Cultural landscape managers are seeking to enhance the ability of landscapes to endure stressors, disturbances, and environmental change. The components of resilient systems—diversity, redundancy, network connectivity, modularity, and adaptability—are valuable tools to examine current landscape vulnerability and to attempt to minimize climate change impacts. These components are derived from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “National Incident Management System” and were recently included in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rebuild by Design competition brief. This article discusses the resiliency components and provides examples from cultural landscapes in national parks across the country. It is intended to stimulate thought about sustainable practices and the ways in which cultural landscapes can be managed through preservation maintenance or rehabilitation treatment for greater resilience to the effects of changing climates.