NPLCC webinar led by anthropology graduate student, Caitlin Rankin
Caitlin Rankin leads webinar describing current and expected climate change threats to cultural resources at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
Climate change remains one of the biggest threats to cultural resources in America’s national parks. At Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (KLGO) climate change threats to cultural resources include response-driven fluvial channel migration, glacial outburst floods, and melting ice patches. Previous monitoring of cultural resources within the park demonstrates the vulnerability of cultural resources to climate change threats; however, no formal monitoring or vulnerability assessment strategy has been created to prevent the destruction or disappearance of these fragile and irreplaceable materials.
This webinar, led by Caitlin Rankin, the George Melendez Wright Young Leaders in Climate Change (YLCC) intern at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, will describe current and expected climate change threats to cultural resources at KLGO and will recommend a vulnerability assessment and monitoring strategy to help protect these irreplaceable resources from changing climatic conditions. Although the results and recommendations of this study are specific to KLGO, the methods of assessment and monitoring may be applied to other locations where cultural resources are threatened by the impacts of climate change.
Caitlin is a current Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on human adaptations to environmental and climatic change.
