Deciphering Cultural Landscape Heritage in the Time of
Climate Change
Robert Z. Melnick
ABSTRACT 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 condi-
tion, intactness, or integrity informed by historic circum-
stances 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 investi-
gation 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 heri-
tage. 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 address-
ing a major revision in our conceptualization of cultural
landscape heritage, especially in light of many future
2017 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
contextual uncertainties, and the ways in which those
uncertainties challenge the normalized view of cultural
landscape process and integrity.
KEYWORDS Climate change, climate science, land-
scape resilience, landscape vulnerability, future heri-
Landscape Journal 35:2 ISSN 0277-2426
tage, dynamic cultural landscapes
INTRODUCTION
What is it about cultural landscapes that sets them
apart from other historic resources? What is it that so
often makes them difficult to understand and protect,
even when they are valued and appreciated? And what
is it that most threatens their resiliency now, as we sail,
often blindly, into the environmental headwinds of the
twenty- rst century?
In a now classic 1981 piece, British author Marion
Shoard explored why landscapes are harder to protect
than buildings (Shoard 1981). Shoard, a British author
who at that time had never visited the U.S., posited
that there are a number of reasons for that challenge.
They included, rst, the very elusive and complex
nature of the landscape, as it is the result of the inter-
action of human activities and the geology, geography
and biology of our planet. She went on to suggest
that landscapes are most often viewed as a jumble of
objects whose origin, function and relationship to each
other are mysteries.
In retrospect, Shoards discussion is an insightful
investigation of many of the problems that we still face
when addressing cultural landscapes. In spite of the
best efforts to codify and explain them, cultural land-
scapes can often seem like a jumble, (Shoard 1981)
demanding far more explanation than the everyday or
even extraordinary historic building or archaeologi-
cal site.
Shoard reminds us of the difficulty of de ning
the limits to any particular stretch of [the landscape]
in space and time. (Shoard 1981) Any student of the
American cultural landscape will recognize this prob-
lem. Where does the cultural landscape end and when
did it begin? While National Park Service guidelines
attempt to address these questions (National Park Ser-
vice 2016), it is worth questioning the ways in which
those guidelines both support and limit a course of
action. These guidelines are founded on architectural
and archeological models of historic resource identi-
cation and analysis that drastically con ict with the
understanding of landscapesnatural and cultural
as dynamic and evolving systems (Brabec and Chil-
ton, 2015).
One of the most challenging of all issues is
identifying a cultural landscapes context. Too often
mistakenly viewed as objects or artifacts, cultural
landscapes in fact are dynamic entities, and are thus
differentiated from other cultural resources by the
rate and pace of change. One need only review some
of the foundational authors in the eld to understand
that cultural landscapes are, by their very de nition,
resiliently dynamic resources, and this is a desirable
characteristic. (Deming 2015, 1129)
Recently, Carl Sa na (Sa na 2011) observed and
wrote about the landscape changes throughout a year
at Lazy Point, on the eastern edge of Long Island,
New York. Sa na, a naturalist, marine biologist and
landscape advocate, reminds us that every walk is a
product of the present and a relic of the past (Sa na
2011, 9). Every walk, every landscape, every place we
live in, visit, see or experience is both past and present,
both noun and verb. This, too, is not a new idea, with
the push to document historic landscapes dating to the
1930s and earlier (Mayall 1935).
Historians, geographers, botanists, landscape
architects, and marine biologists share ideas imbed-
ded in the concept of landscape as a dynamic system
(Higgs 2003, Glassberg 2001, Beagan and Dolan 2015,
Dolan 2009, Melnick 2015). The most basic under-
standing of systems theory recognizes that all parts
are related, and an alteration of any one part alters the
entire system (Odum 1983, Weinberg 2002). In cultural
landscapes, the dynamic system is a de ning character-
istic, not merely an afterthought, add-on, or incidental;
it is an essential quality.
We must look beyond any specic landscape, how-
ever, and include and engage the larger environmental
context as well. The cultural landscape is both inter-
nally and externally intricate and dynamic, affected by
machinations in politics, economics, climate patterns,
social norms and mores, and human aspirations and
predilections.
All cultural landscapes are dynamic cultural
landscapes; changes in the land brought on by cultural
traditions can be presented through landscape
288 Landscape Journal 35:2
interpretation. What used to be called living history
was one way of expressing an active and participatory
view of past events. Consider, for example, Plimoth
Plantation or Colonial Williamsburg (Kopper 1986).
In the truest sense, however, these are not dynamic
cultural landscapes, but places set, or even freeze-
dried, in a moment in time. This can be considered a
bell jar approach to historic preservation. Another
example, but still purposefully not truly dynamic, is
Old World Wisconsin in Eagle, Wisconsin. Operated
by the Wisconsin Historical Society since 1976,
this reconstructed historic village and agricultural
landscape portrays housing and the daily life of
European immigrants in nineteenth-century Wisconsin
(Holmes 2002).
The dynamism of cultural landscapes, of course,
is also inextricably linked not only to human history
but to ecological systems. Writing of the ecological
systems in Athabasca Valley in Jasper National Park,
Alberta, Eric Higgs (2003, 267) states:
Irrespective of viewpoint, visible to any keen
observer are both the extent and rate of change.
And the changes are mind-boggling. In less than
a hundred years, the complexion of this valley
has changed irrevocably. This is a simple fact we
sometimes neglect because of the incremental
quality of the changes. The trajectory is clear so
far, but how will the changes unfurl in the next
century? Taken as one piece, the sweep of history
ought to incite a consideration of the future in the
thinking of park managers, scholars, citizens and
visitors, or so one would think.
Higgss admonition that the sweep of history
ought to incite a consideration of the future is espe-
cially appropriate as we delve into the impacts of
climate change on cultural landscapes and develop
mechanisms to assess the vulnerability of those land-
scapes given the probability of climate change and
other variables (Glick, et.al. 2011).
Traditional historic preservation does not engage
or fully consider surrounding environs. Cemented
in the foundations of preservation orthodoxy, the
overwhelming majority of preservation policies,
treatments, and actions fail to recognize the
changing contexts of valued resources. Since 1966
the National Register of Historic Places (Scarpino
1992) has served as the baseline for determining
historic signicance and integrity and, by extension,
appropriate preservation action. The National
Register and the Secretary of Interiors Standards
for Historic Properties (National Park Service 2016)
have both evolved and grown over the past 50 years,
and have been especially useful in institutionalizing
and regularizing our recognition of places of historic
value in our society and in our landscape. One
important aspect of these de ning documents has not
changed, however, except in minor details. These two
fundamental documents of federal preservation policy
do not account for a dynamic environmental milieu,
with ecological, political, cultural, and/or economic
uctuations. Instead, they consider resources within
a constant or predictable context and fail to fully
appreciate or duly recognize the dynamic nature of the
larger environment. This can lead to the unfortunate
belief that preservation action alone can determine the
degree of protection for a historic or cultural resource.
While this is clearly not appropriate for historic
buildings, it is deadly for cultural landscapes. Thus,
each of the directions for recognizing, evaluating
and treating cultural landscapes assumes a greater
level of constancy than we now experience or might
reasonably anticipate.
Additionally, these preservation guidelines and
standards rely on a normative set of societal values
that do not have the exibility to evolve as resources
become more scarce, and competition for them is
heightened. What will happen when decisions are
made to put a lower priority on non- essentials, and
who will make those decisions? And who will de ne
non- essentials? Internationally, one need only con-
sider the recent actions of ISIS in Syria, for example,
as resources that have been revered for centuries are
eradicated based on constricted values and intentions
of present day actors (Barnard 2015).
Our changing global climate adds a signicant
factor of predictable unpredictability. The response to
climate change impact on cultural landscapes cannot
be re ned without considering a number of deeply
rooted issues and concepts. These are based in a collec-
tive frustration with forces that are well beyond our
control, but also from long held contradictions as we
seek to contain, rede ne and disassemble the nature/
culture dichotomy. In most cases, these issues could
not have been anticipated in the Venice Charter (1964),
the Historic Preservation Act (1966), the Burra Charter
(1979) or other fundamental international declarations
of preservation/conservation tenets. In the commit-
ment to protect critical and valued resources, climate
change issues require that we be nimble and exible yet
adhere to basic beliefs and ideals.
It is the unpredictability of these forces, however,
that may cause us to avoid these issues. As Per Espen
Stoknes asserts, the data on climate change is alarm-
ing and difficult to confront, resulting from a conict
between scientic information and public and political
will. (Stoknes 2015). As Donald Rumsfeld reminded
the world in 2002:
As we know, there are known knowns; there are
things we know we know. We also know there are
known unknowns; that is to say we know there are
some things we do not know. But there are also
unknown unknownsthe ones we dont know we
dont know (Graham 2014).
The concept of unknown unknowns applies
not only to global environmental forces, but also to
our ability or willingness to confront how these forces
impact the cultural landscape. While governments and
society must address the course of climate change, oth-
ers can work to ameliorate the impact of those changes
on valued resources. These are two different tracks,
although sometimes confused and conated.
Climate change presents societies with issues
beyond those affecting cultural landscapes. Food
supply, for example, and our ability to feed and sup-
port global populations will be an increasing challenge
(Benton and Bailey 2015). We are faced, as well, with
an increased recognition of climate change migration,
and the increasing movement of human populations
across the globe (de Melo 2015).
Climate change and its impact on the cultural
landscape may very well be the prevalent force of
change and generator of heritage in the future.1 What,
then, is the heritage we will leave for future genera-
tions? Although, in our current systems, heritage is
generally associated with physical artifacts, there
are of course other ways of connecting with the past
(Lowenthal 1985). The most obvious of these are
intangible resources, such as language, stories,
songs, cooking traditions, religion, and personal
mores, to name just a few (Glassberg 2001).
Melnick 289
Figure 1
New Orleans after Katrina, 2005. (Photo credit: Robert Z Melnick.)
In the transmission of history, however, in the
telling of the story, there is another strong tradition.
Scholars reect on movements, periods of time when
both subtle and dramatic shifts in human history took
place. Periods such as the industrial revolution are
imbued with multiple meanings and understandings,
and subject to recurring re-interpretations. Often, this
results in revisionist history, hardly a new concept.
As we learn more, uncover new facts, or witness the
past through changing lenses, we see it in a new light.
Our understanding and re-understanding of the Cold
War, for example, is a demonstration of changing
views and revisionist history that goes against so much
of what many believed to be true in the 1950s (Alpero-
vitz 1965).
The discussion takes us back to the National
Register of Historic Places, the official listing in this
country of those places that pass the test of multi-level
review and are designated as officially historic and
signicant. For better or for worse, the National
Register tradition, since 1966, relies on what has been
incorrectly termed the 50-year rule, a measure that
applies a standard of age to the designation of historic
290 Landscape Journal 35:2
signicance. The idea behind this guideline, which
more likely dates to the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and
subsequent actions (Sprinkle 2007) is that, in order to
assess signicance, it is necessary for historians and
others to have some temporal distance, such as two
generations. Some analysts, but not all, understand
however that the 50 year guideline is not a rule but a
consideration that needs justication. (Miller 2015,
Sprinkle 2007)
Climate change presents us with a very different
phenomenon, however. There are two ways to under-
stand climate change in this context. We can view it
as a force, which it is, and identify and comprehend its
impact on historic physical resources. The National
Park Services Climate Change Response Program is
tackling this issue head on (NPS 2010). We can also
view it as a movement, an era, or a period of time that
we will reect on in the future, much as we still debate
about the Industrial Revolution (Beaudoin 2000) or the
meaning of Woodstock almost 50 years after that event
(Life Magazine 1969). Climate change, then, may mark
this time as one of equally incremental and dramatic
change to both place and people (Semuels 2015).
Figure 2
Oahu taro patch farming, 2009. (Photo credit: Robert Z Melnick.)
UNCONTROLLABLE ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES
AND VIEWS OF HERITAGE
Like much science, research in climate change is as
much an art as it is an exact discipline, especially when
it comes to making predictions about any particular
piece of georgraphy (Turner 2010). We have come to
expect, through lifelong indoctrination, that science
most often has the right answer. This is, at best, an
unreasonable expectation with which to burden those
who experiment, take intellectual and professional
risks, and seek answers that are often unimaginable or
outside our accepted worldviews. We hear of paradigm
shifts but, as Thomas Kuhn reminded us, these are
really revolutions in our thinking, not merely incre-
mental shifts (Kuhn 1996). We need more than a shift
in our thinking about historically signicant cultural
landscapes, their preservation or protection, and our
response to human-inicted changes to robust ecologi-
cal systems.
For starters, we can accept the premise of an
uncertain but certainly variable future for these land-
scapes (Figure 1). We can directly embrace exibility
in our approaches, encourage frequent reassessment
of landscape conditions, and plan for the need to alter
our course as conditions change. These are not easy
strategies, and they demand a dynamic approach. It
may mean, for example, that we re-think what we
value in a landscape (Glassberg 2014).
When addressing these challenges to the preserva-
tion of cultural landscapes, we can plan for change and
ways to mitigate it (Glick, Stein, and Edelson 2011).
Acceptance of change, in the form of a more exible
understanding of what we mean by character-de ning
features and how we respond to those changes, may
be an essential part of this approach (Figure 2). For
example, does it matter more, in preservation terms,
whether a landscape retains an exact tree genus and
species or that the spatial and visual characteristics of
those trees are maintained? Would it be better to plant
replacement trees that are more resistant to warming
and decreased precipitation, or to re-plant trees that
will likely not survive unprecedented environmental
shifts? How much do these changes matter in terms of
the landscape we are trying to protect? We need to talk
about what cultural landscape experience and charac-
teristics we are trying to protect, rather than preserve.
Melnick 291
 As an additional strategy, resilience in the face
of change may mean greater proactive intervention,
rather than waiting till undesired change has occurred
to both cultural and ecological landscapes. This, in
turn, implies the setting of priorities. For example, we
may want to engage in greater seedbanking or intensive
management during re-vegetation, a labor-intensive
and costly process that nonetheless may enable the
protection of critical landscape features. (Beagan and
Dolan 2015)
But are we prepared to make difficult decisions
about which landscapes to try to save, which land-
scapes are salvageable, and which landscapes are not?
In the extreme, this may mean that we practice a form
of cultural landscape triage, choosing to save certain
places while letting other ones remain only in the
historical record. This is not a long-term response, and
scholars disagree on its appropriateness but it may be
necessary as a short-term step, while the science for
more lasting solutions is developed (Enomoto 2014).
It may also require more stringent and demanding
criteria for signicance, especially when compared to that meet the Secretary of the Interiors Standards for
what we now practice. 2
How do we make these triage decisions? Who
makes them, and are they based primarily on available
scal resources as opposed to a re-imagined de nition
of signicance for historic landscape resources (Beren-
feld 2015)? Signicance is not a function of taste, but
rather of importance, and we would therefore benet
from a re- examination of the now decades-old under-
standing of what is meant by that term.
When do we recognize the necessity of landscape
hospice? In this changing environmental context, it
may be appropriate to practice caring and grieving as
a valued cultural landscape slips from our company.
We also must recognize the historical ranges
of variation (Millar, et. al., 2007). Taking both the
long and short views is vital in this effort. While it
is often tempting or convenient to look at the most
recent past, landscape time demands that we con-
sider variations over a long period. Taking only the
immediate snapshot in the rearview mirror can result
in a failure to recognize the nature and impacts of
climate change, as we, perhaps, rely on last years
rainfall gauges, this years storm data or next years
temperature graph. Weather is not the same as climate,
although often mistaken for that, and it has
not been constant. There have been understandable
292 Landscape Journal 35:2
and identiable normal ranges of variation that
can be used as a baseline for future analysis and
decision-making. Ranges of variation help us recog-
nize when the climate variables are ordinary, or out
of the ordinary, as in the work being accomplished by
National Park Service, climate change scientists, and
others (National Park Service 2010).
But how can we begin to organize our deci-
sions about what to do? There are a number of direct
adaptation approaches that can be taken in the face
of climate change and cultural landscape preserva-
tion. These vary in intensity, geographic and temporal
scale, and urgency (National Park Service 2010). It
may be possible, for example, to determine that the
cultural landscape is not in immediate danger and take
no action. Or we may attempt to mitigate the climate
change stresses through action off site from the cul-
tural landscape, thereby anticipating and offsetting
the direct impact on the landscape. Another option is
to improve the cultural landscapes resilience to climate
change by making compatible alterations and additions
the Treatment of Historic Properties. Climate resil-
ience is generally de ned as the capacity to absorb
stresses and maintain landscapes function in the face
of external stresses imposed by climate change; and
adapt and evolve in order to improve the sustainabil-
ity of the cultural landscape, leaving it better pre-
pared for the impact of future climate change (Glick,
et.al. 2011).
In some instances, we will need to allow change
to occur in the cultural landscape, attempting to limit
the impact to those character-de ning features that are
high priority and have higher feasibility for preserva-
tion (Hammond 2014). And we can allow the land-
scape to deteriorate, without intervention. This implies
taking no adaptation action except for extensive and
detailed landscape documentation and data recovery,
such in the National Park Services HABS/HAER/
HALS program (HABS/HAER/HALS 2016).
In all cases, there is a need to assess and deter-
mine urgency and speed of intervention. This requires
a clear documentation of the cultural landscapes
character-de ning features, climate change projec-
tions for the landscapes ecological zone, and known
and anticipated vulnerabilities of the landscapes
character-de ning features to climate variables.
We can then determine whether the landscapes
vulnerability to climate change must be urgently
addressed or carefully monitored because the land-
scape is in the early stages of change or evidence of the
projected change does not yet exist.
Climate Change As the Heritage of the Future
Understanding of heritage, of course, varies from
culture to culture. In many cases, what we understand
as heritage depends greatly on individual experience,
societal exposure, and formal and informal educa-
tional indoctrination. One need only explore the 2015
controversy over the ying of the Confederate ag
on public lands in South Carolina to understand that
this can be a controversial issue, fraught with politi-
cal, social and cultural overtones. In that case, the
ag, also known as the Confederate battle ag (or the
Southern Cross), represented shameful heritage on one
side, and proud heritage on the other (Cobb 2015).
Regardless of ones views, the ying of the ag repre-
sented more than the cloth from which it was made.
It was a symbol of wrong or right; a symbol of slavery
or freedom; a reminder of the damage done to human
beings, or the ght for states rights.
Heritage, as a reection of history, is a human
construct, a lens through which we ascribe meaning
and value to event and place. It is a way of enabling
people to understand where they are in time and place,
a way to link ourselves to the past and, by exten-
sion, to the future. For immigrant groups who leave
a homeland never to return, heritage can be the vital
connection to memory and meaning (Handlin 1951).
Heritage can be the way one cooks, speaks, worships,
plays music, tells stories, dresses, or settles and uses
the land. As David Lowenthal reminds us, heritage is
also an industry (1998).
In the case of cultural landscapes, as with other
physical resources (e.g., buildings, structures, and
archeological sites) heritage is embodied in the place,
in the artifact, in the stable and predictable object. As
Handlin observed, for immigrants far from a home
they knew, the need for stability was a powerful force,
holding in place religious observances and linguistic
protocols that continued to evolve in the old world, but
not in the new (1951). This made linkages to heritage
easier, resulting in anchored, xed, and emotionally
safe practices.
What happens when we can no longer guarantee
a lifeline to the same anchors? What happens when
we have to wade deeper to articulate and understand
a revised heritage, one that is slowly transforming?
We are in a time when the stability of our cultural
landscape heritage is threatened by what we might
term a revised predictability. This is not to say that
we are swirling in cultural landscape anarchy; nor are
engaged in a Back to the Future scenario in which
our family photographs will fade from memory if we
dont act immediately. Rather, we need to engage in
both short and long term scenarios to ensure the heri-
tage of the past does not prohibit us from protecting
the heritage of the future (Glick, et.al 2011).
Preservation is, at its root, a conservative term
and concept. 3 The very essence of preservation is
designed to inhibit change, whether it is reactionary
or progressive. That does not work, however, if we
consider cultural landscapes in a vacuum or out of
context.
WAYS TO APPROACH THESE ISSUES: THREE BRIEF
EXAMPLES
Addressing the impact of climate change and cultural
landscape vulnerabilities is a challenging and daunt-
ing task. There is neither a single answer, nor only one
approach, in a context in which exibility is a key con-
cept. Three examples illustrate different ways in which
responses to climate change impact, climate variables,
and anticipated landscape vulnerabilities are being
considered and developed. Each of these examples re-
ects an important set of varying circumstances. Each
is in a different ecological zone and a different cultural
landscape type and has experienced different impacts
of climate change trends or events, exhibiting differ-
ent vulnerabilities to future climactic impacts. In each
case, the cumulative effect is the integration of climate
change trends or events in the long term planning for
the protection of these landscapes. And for each, the
most difficult challenge is the level of uncertainty and
the broad range of variables.
Lyons Ranches, Redwood National Park
Lyons Ranches, situated high in the Bald Hills of Red-
wood National Park, is a historic district recognized as
a signicant cultural landscape (Figure 3). Perhaps the
most interesting and challenged cultural landscape ele-
ments of this 5660-acre district are eight prairies, each
no more than a mile from the next. These naturally
occurring prairies, stretching across the upper ridge
Melnick 293
Figure 3
Lyons Ranches, Redwood National Park, 2016. (Photo Credit: Cultural Landscape Research Group, University of Oregon.)
of the Bald Hills, have been modied over time, rst
by Native Americans and, from 1869 to 1959, by sheep
ranchers (National Park Service 2004).
The ranches and the associated prairies are impor-
tant because they reect the history and development
of the Bald Hills as a sheep ranching community and
because there is no development following this historic
period. Thus, as a cultural landscape, the interplay
between natural landscape and human activity can be
readily understood. Even though the ranches are in
Redwood National Park, the district receives minimal
visitation (Grantham 2016). Importantly, some of the
prairies are still used by the Yurock tribe for cultural
activities.
In addition to the prairies, the ranches retain
other cultural landscape features, including fences,
buildings and structures, dirt roads, orchards, and
the overall spatial arrangement at a number of sites
within the district. As a cultural landscape, it is readily
witnessed and understood, and can explain the sheep
ranching activities that thrived in the area for 90 years
(NPS 2004).
294 Landscape Journal 35:2
Lyons Ranches are also important because
they are beginning to reect trends in climate varia-
tion that are affecting this landscape, especially the
prairies. Based upon four climate models, the prob-
ability is that precipitation will remain within a
normal range. Air temperature, however, could rise
from 1.4C to 4.0C in the coming century (Gonzalez
2015). Gonzalez and others have identied major cli-
mate vulnerabilities of this landscape, in light of these
anticipated air temperature uctuations and precipita-
tion trends:
Continued heating under climate change may
continue to reduce coastal fog and increase
drought stress in coast redwood trees (Sequoia
sempervirens) (Johnstone and Dawson 2010)
Climate change under the highest emissions
scenario could double the area burned by
wildfire by 2085 A.D. (Westerling etal. 2011)
A combination of increased fire and sudden oak
death disease could increase mortality in coast
redwoods (Metz etal. 2013)
Figure 4
Prairie, Lyons Ranches Redwood National Park, 2016. (Photo Credit: Cultural Landscape Research Group, University of Oregon.)
Park ecosystems are vulnerable to shifts of
broadleaf species into conifer forest stands
due to climate change (Gonzalez etal.
2010), exacerbated by habitat fragmentation
(Eigenbrod etal. 2015)
From a cultural landscape perspective, for this
area of the Bald Hills, far as it is from the coastal red-
wood stands, the potentially most signicant impact
is the gradual movement of broadleaf species into
the conifer stands. Recent eld investigations, as yet
unpublished, have also revealed shifts of confers into
the historically signicant prairies and the blurring of
the historically clear edges between prairie and forest
(Figure 4, CLRG 2016). The prairies, if not managed,
run the risk of slowly drifting into sparse, and then
dense, deciduous woodland.
This raises an important question regarding man-
agement response, and the protection of this heritage
landscape. Will the future heritage of this landscape
rely more on historic photos, oral histories and memo-
ries, rather than the visible display, and therefore
the appreciation, of the prairie landscape? This will
require reective consideration of the integration of
cultural and natural features, funding limitations, per-
sonnel availability, and overarching park management
priorities.
Scottys Castle, Death Valley National Park
Scottys Castle in Death Valley National Park pre-
sented a different issue, following a dramatic and
highly unusual storm in October 2015 (Germano
2015). The district is closely associated with one of the
best known and most colorful gures on the American
mining frontierWalter Scott, aka Death Valley
Scotty. Scottys Castle, a property covering 300 acres,
is located within the Grapevine Canyon of Death
Valley at a 3000 foot elevation. Several characteristic
buildings and structures of a small working ranch
remain, including Scottys Castle and annex, the pow-
erhouse, the chimestower, guest house, stables, garage
bunkhouse/hotel, entrance gate, and gravel separator,
as well as roads, vegetation, and the overall spatial
layout of the site. The building complex appears much
Melnick 295
Figure 5
Road Degradation following October 2015 storm, Scottys Castle, Death Valley National Park, 2016.
(Photo Credit: Cultural Landscape Research Group, University of Oregon.)
like a small Spanish village in its spatial organization,
circulation system, and design details (National Park
Service 2005).
In October, 2015, the site experienced a violent
storm, with a short, yet intense torrential downpour
that caused signicant damage. Road beds were
upheaved (Figure 5, CLRG 2016a), trees were uprooted
(Figure 6), and all power and water supplies were inter-
rupted. Debris was scattered across the landscape, and
many of the smaller buildings and structures experi-
enced moderate to severe damage (Germano 2015).
Following the storm and closure of the site to
visitors, the NPS conducted a damage assessment that
included recommendations for repair of the cultural
landscape systems as well as specic resources within
the site. The assessment focused on a number of key
ndings, including damage to natural systems and
features, circulation systems, spatial organization,
and vegetation. All of the recommendations focused
on site repair and stabilization, rather than long range
planning or mitigation intervention (Germano 2015).
The report also strongly recommended future site
296 Landscape Journal 35:2
monitoring, identication of hazard trees that might
cause further damage, and re-grading of the hillside to
help stabilize the structures and roadbed.
The storm, which would have been considered a
very rare event in past years, has left a lasting impact
on this regionally historic and popular site, visited by
approximately 100,000 people per year (Davenport
2016). Additionally, the storms force raises important
questions regarding the cultural landscapes ability
to withstand the impact of future storms, which may
increase in both frequency and intensity as a result of
climate change. While the effect of the storm prob-
ably could not have been mitigated prior to its occur-
rence, attention to resilience planning approaches
will become more important in the future. It is also
true that the damage to this cultural landscape is
now part of a history that may need future heritage
interpretation.
Rapidan Camp, Shenandoah National Park
A study of Rapidan Camp, in Shenandoah National
Park, Virginia, demonstrates how the inherent and
Figure 6
Damage from October 2015 storm, Scottys Castle, Death Valley National Park, 2016. (Photo Credit:
Cultural Landscape Research Group, University of Oregon)
implicit heritage of one cultural landscape is chang-
ing under the impact of climate change, and how we
might think about its new heritage even as we strive
to hold on to those features that remind us where we
are and how we got here (Hammond 2014). Rapi-
dan Camp, the 164-acre summer White House for
President Herbert Hoover, sits along the Rapidan River
in a valley in the heart of Shenandoah National Park.
Purchased as private land by President Hoover in 1929,
it was donated to the Commonwealth of Virginia when
he left office in 1933, and it eventually became part
of Shenandoah National Park. It was the precursor to
the presidential retreat at Camp David, in Maryland.
Rapidan Camp includes a number of rustic structures
and is marked by a lush tree canopy, gravel walkways,
and ready access to trout shing, one of Hoovers
favorite pastimes. In addition to staff and family, the
President hosted diplomatic guests at Rapidan, and
used it as a retreat from the sweltering summers of
Washington, D.C.
The Hoovers insisted that the scenery, and the
sites rustic character, be preserved and that no living
trees, coal, or oil could be used for cooking or heating.
Both the President and Mrs. Hoover were also very
fond of native plants and color in the gardens (Ham-
mond 2014).
Rapidan Camp is now managed as an interpretive
site in Shenandoah National Park and its three main
buildingsthe Presidents cabin, the Prime Ministers
cabin and the Creelare open to the public. Visitors
can wander through this site, experiencing this land-
scape much as the President and Mrs. Hoover would
have during their times here; or at least they could have
until recently.
As documented in an outstanding NPS Cultural
Landscape Report (Hammond 2014), this National
Historic Landmark is now both protected and chal-
lenged. It is protected by the National Park Service as
a signicant cultural resource in the park. It is chal-
lenged by the changing environment in which is exists.
There are different ways to understand what
Rapidan Camp provides us as a nation and as a people.
It was, of course, the Hoover summer White House, a
place where important meetings were held and events
Melnick 297
Figure 7
Loss of Hemlock trees, Rapidan Camp, Shenandoah National Park. (Photo Credit: Robert Z. Melnick.)
occurred. It was a presidential retreat, where many,
if not all, of the design decisions were made by the
president or Mrs. Hoover.
Rapidan Camp also reects the heritage of historic
landscape preservation in this country, a place honored
not for its immaculate design attributes, but rather
for its rustic qualities and association with signicant
people in American history. Its preservation treat-
ment till now has been smart and direct, protecting
character-de ning resources, including the recognition
of change over time (Hammond 2014).
Rapidan Camp manifests the heritage of the
impact of human activity and climate change. As noted
in the Cultural Landscape Report, and as observed on
site, the hemlock trees that formed a shaded canopy
from Hoovers time are now mostly dead or dying (Fig-
ure 7). In the early decades of the twentieth century,
gardeners in Virginia, enthusiastic about Japanese
design, imported plants that contained the woolly
adelgid, a tiny, non-native worm that has since deci-
mated the hemlock forests of the Eastern United States
(Preston 2007). Without natural predators on this
298 Landscape Journal 35:2
continent, the woolly adelgid has re-shaped the forests
of the Appalachians, which have also been under stress
exacerbated by air pollution, shifting rainfall pat-
terns, temperature changes, and other climate change
related forces. The combination of the invasive insect
and the changes in climate fundamentally transformed
the forest that is home to this historic landscape. The
loss of the hemlock trees has dramatically altered the
character of Rapidan Camp by opening the forest oor
to sunlight and encouraging dense shrub and sapling
growth (Figure 8). The goal of the plan is to reestablish
the high overhead canopy and, thus, the shaded char-
acter of the camp. The increased shade will also help
to suppress the undesirable invasive understory species
(Hammond 2014).
The plan to treat this cultural landscape is cre-
ative and ingenious. It is linked to the long-term goal
of seeing and understanding this landscape as it was
during the Hoover era. Equally importantly, however,
and perhaps without deliberate intention, it estab-
lishes the link between human activity, exotic invasive
insects, and climate change as essential components of
Figure 8
Rapidan Camp, Shenandoah National Park. (Photo Credit: Robert Z. Melnick.)
the landscapes heritage. The proposed treatmentto
reestablish the hemlock canopy through a decades-long
effortis, in itself, an implicit response to climate
change.
The plan sets in motion a re ned and complex
process that establishes a new benchmark for how to
address these concerns long term, with benets that
may not be seen for two or more generations, when it
may well be viewed as part of our landscape heritage.
As with all cultural landscapes, heritage is not only
what we see in the landscape, but includes the human
actions and activities that shape it. The plan to protect
the very essence of Rapidan Camp is, thus, building
the heritage that we will one day look back on and
recognize as signicant.
Assessing Cultural Landscape Vulnerability
These three examples, different as they are, highlight
the complex question of cultural landscape vulnerabil-
ity to climate variables, fraught with complexities and
many anticipated, as well as unknown, circumstances.
For example, what will happen to a historic orchard
if precipitation drops, or air temperature rises? We
may need to accept these changes, as difficult as that
may be.
Climate science cannot predict the future. It can,
however, suggest probabilities, which lead to projec-
tions, and then to scenarios for future events and
responses to offset the consequences of those projec-
tions (NW Climate Magazine 2015). There are many
unknown variables, such as air temperature and
precipitation, that affect the ability to project future
climate change scenarios. Various local and federal
agencies (for example, the National Park Service, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological
Survey, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration) are developing methods to gather
input from climate scientists, students of the cultural
landscape, and the general public to better understand
and anticipate the impacts of climate change on a
variety of resource types. That information must be
adapted in the general eld of landscape preservation.
Perhaps the most important effort to develop tools
to assess vulnerabilities is led by the National Wildlife
Melnick 299
Federation, in cooperation with the Department of
Defense, the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Glick,
Stein, and Edelson 2011). While this document does
not specically focus on cultural landscapes, it frames
many of the issues, discussed below, that must be
addressed if the vulnerability of cultural landscapes to
climate change variables can be be successfully under-
stood and mitigated.
Key in this effort is the need to identify and evalu-
ate a cultural landscapes vulnerability to climate
change. Vulnerability, in its clearest form, is based on
three major factors: a cultural landscapes exposure
to climate variables (such as increased air tempera-
ture), its sensitivity to those variables (how much will
the change affect the landscapes resources), and its
adaptive capacity (how will it respond to the variables.
Each of the examples discussed above face differ-
ent degrees of exposure (events or trends), varying
sensitivity to that exposure, and a range of adaptive
capacity (Glick, Stein, and Edelson 2011).
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
Cultural landscapes can be regarded as a prospect,
an intellectual and practical construct enabling us
to take the broad view and look out upon the world,
understanding where we are headed and where we
have been. Cultural landscapes can also be considered
a refuge, a center providing shelter from the forces in
our society that deny any connection to a past, or any
responsibility to the future.
While we are stewards of the past, we are also
responsible for the future. Lowenthal, (2005) makes
the point cogently and coherently that not only have
we too often forgotten about the past, we have also
not paid adequate attention to the value or meaning of
preservation:
. . . in recent times we have learned a great deal
about how to preserve almost everything
endangered species, antiquities, art, archives,
human life itself. Technology makes long-term
conservation increasingly feasible. The means
are there, but the ends are missing. The rationale
for long-term stewardship is little discussed, let
alone debated, still less realized as state or global
policy. (Lowenthal 2005, 21)
300 Landscape Journal 35:2
The cultural landscape, then, is always about the
past and the futurewhat has happened, how places
were built and molded, what will happen next week,
next season, next year, or next century, and what it
will mean to future generations. Climate change adds
another overlay to this view, and demands a more com-
plex vision than Lowenthals, requiring that we value
not only the landscapes of our past, but the ways in
which those places may very well be modied beyond
what we might otherwise expect. Landscape is truly a
noun and a verb, a product and a process.
Recent work notwithstanding, (Melnick 2015)
there is a general inability to incorporate landscape
thinking and analysis into historic preservation
thinking and analysis. Like Heinleins hero in
Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein 1961), cultural
landscapes are often anomalies in the conceptual
framework of historic preservation. The cultural
landscape realm is multi-dimensional and can too
easily seem to be all but history. Yet the landscape is
the inscribed historical record of our culture: portions
fade, some aspects assume greater importance as time
passes, and the wisdom of hindsight can blur both
the greater scheme and the intimate details (Jack-
son 1970).
Many people can recite the litany of reasons for
their belief in the importance of preservationthe
pace of change in our society, the loss of local iden-
tity, the decline of human craft and skill, the homog-
enization of American towns and communities,
the McBurbing of our countryside, and the need to
remember who we are and where we have been (Stipe
2003). And we can look to those places that help us
as individuals and as communities to remember, or
even nd, steady ground in a shifting world of climate
change.
NOTES
1. Thanks to Marcy Rockman, NPS Climate Change Coordina-
tor for Cultural Resources, for this compelling idea.
2. As currently practiced through the National Register of
Historic Places, significance is assessed base on four crite-
ria, which is one part of the process that enables eligibility
for listing on the Register. With the exception of National
Landmark status, it does not, however, assist it setting
preservation priorities.
3. While much of the world uses the word conservation,
preservation is employed in this work, as it takes place in
 the U.S. In the U.S. context, conservation usually refers to
the treatment of natural systems and features.
REFERENCES
Alperovitz, Gar. 1965. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam.
New York: Simon and Schuster.
Barnard, Anne. 2015. ISIS Speeds Up Destruction of Antiquities
in Syria. New York Times. August24, 2015. http://www
.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/world/isis-accelerates
-destruction-of-antiquities-in-syria.html?_r=0
Beagan, Chris and Susan Dolan. 2015. Integrating Components
of Resilient Systems into Cultural Landscape Management
Practices. Change Over Time 5(2): 180-19.
Beaudoin, Steven M. 2000. Current debates in the study of the
industrial revolution. OAH Magazine of History 15(1): 7-13.
Benton, Tim and Rob Bailey. 2015. Extreme Weather and Food
Shocks. New York Times. September8, 2015. http://www
.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/extreme-weather
-and-food-shocks.html?emc=edit_ty_20150908&nl
=opinion&nlid=51751652.
Berenfeld, Michelle L. 2015. Planning for Permanent Emergency:
Triage as a Strategy for Managing Cultural Resources
Threatened by Climate Change. The George Wright Forum,
32 (1): 512.
Brabec, Elizabeth and Elizabeth Chilton. 2015. Toward An
Ecology of Cultural Heritage. Change Over Time, 5(2):
266285.
Cobb. Jelani. 2012. Equality and the Confederate Flag. The New
Yorker. June22, 2015. http://www.newyorker.com/news/
news-desk/equality-confederate-flag-charleston.
Cultural Landscape Research Group. (CLRG) 2016. Field notes
and photographs, Lyons Ranches, Redwood National Park.
Unpublished. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.
Cultural Landscape Research Group. (CLRG) 2016a. Field notes
and photographs, Scottys Castle, Death Valley National
Park. Unpublished. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.
Davenport, Mary-Blair. 2016. Personal conversation.
de Melo, Jaime. Climate change and the growing challenges of
migration. Brookings Newsletter on Planet Policy. http://www
.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2015/08/24
-climate-change-migration-challenges-de-melo
Deming, M. Elen, ed. 2015. Values in Landscape Architecture and
Environmental Design: Finding Center in Theory and Practice.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Dolan, Susan. 2009. A Fruitful Legacy: A Historic Context
of Orchards in the United States. Olmsted Center for
Landscape Preservation, Pacific West Regional Office.
Washington, DC: NPS Park Historic Structures and Cultural
Landscapes Program.
Eigenbrod, F., P. Gonzalez, J. Dash, and I. Steyl. 2015.
Vulnerability of ecosystems to climate change moderated
by habitat intactness. Global Change Biology 21: 275286.
Enomoto, Stanton. 2014. Personal correspondence.
Germano, Vida. 2015. Preliminary damage assessment of the
Scottys Castle cultural landscape. San Francisco, CA:
National Park Service.
Glassberg, David. 2014. Place, Memory and Climate Change. The
Public Historian 36(3): 1730.
Glassberg, David. 2001. Sense of History: The place of the past in
American life. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
Press.
Glick, P., B.A. Stein, and N.A. Edelson, eds. 2011. Scanning the
Conservation Horizon: A Guide to Climate Change Vulnerability
Assessment. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation.
Gonzalez, Patrick. 2015. Climate Change Trends, Vulnerabilities,
and Ecosystem Carbon, Redwood National Park, California.
Washington, DC: Natural Resource Stewardship and
Science, U.S. National Park Service (unpublished
document).
Graham, David A. 2014. Rumsfelds Knowns and Unknowns: The
Intellectual History of a Quip. The Atlantic. http://www
.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/rumsfelds
-knowns-and-unknowns-the-intellectual-history-of-a
-quip/359719/.
Grantham, Karen. 2016. Personal conversation.
Hammond, John. 2014. Cultural Landscape Report for Rapidan
Camp, Shenandoah National Park, Madison County,
Virginia. Boston, MA: Olmsted Center for Landscape
Preservation, National Park Service.
Handlin, Oscar. 1951. The Uprooted. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Heinlein, Robert. 1961 [1987]. Stranger in a Strange Land. New
York: Ace Books.
HABS/HAER/HALS. 2016. Heritage Documentation Programs.
https://www.nps.gov/history/hdp/
Higgs. Eric. 2003. Nature by Design: People, Natural Process, and
Ecological Restoration. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Holmes, Fred L. 2002. Old World Wisconsin: Around Europe in the
Badger State. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Jackson, J.B. 1970. Landscapes: Selected Writings of J. B.Jackson.
Ed. Erv Zube. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts
Press.
Johnstone, J.A. and T.E. Dawson. 2010. Climatic context and
ecological implications of summer fog decline in the coast
redwood region. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the USA 107: 45334538.
Kopper, William. 1986. Colonial Williamsburg. New York: Harry N.
Abrams.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1996 (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Life Magazine. 1969. Special Edition: Woodstock Music Festival.
Lowenthal, David. 1985 (2015). The Past Is a Foreign Country. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
. 1998. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History.
London: Cambridge University Press.
Melnick 301
. 2005. Stewarding the Future. CRM Journal (Summer): Stipe, Robert E. ed. 2003. A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation
2039. in the Twenty-First Century. Chapel Hill, NC: The University
. 1985 (2015). The Past Is a Foreign Country. New York: of North Carolina Press.
Cambridge University Press. Stoknes, Per Espen. 2015. What We Think About When We Try
Mayall, R. Newton. 1935. Recording Historic American Not To Think About Global Warming. White River Junction,
Landscape Architecture. Landscape Architecture (26)1: 111. VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Melnick, Robert Z., guest ed. Fall 2015. Climate Change and Turner, Monica G. 2010. Disturbance and landscape dynamics in
Landscape Preservation. Change Over Time 5(2): 174179. a changing world. Ecology 91(10): 283349.
Metz, M.R., J.M. Varner, K.M. Frangioso, R.K. Meentemeyer, Weinberg, Gerald M. 2002. An Introduction to General Systems
and D.M. Rizzo. 2013. Unexpected redwood mortality from Thinking. New York: Dorset House Publishing.
synergies between wildfire and an emerging infectious Westerling, A.L., B.P. Bryant, H.K. Preisler, T.P. Holmes, H.G.
disease. Ecology 94: 21522159. Hidalgo, T. Das, and S.R. Shrestha. 2011. Climate change
Millar, C.I, N.L. Stephenson, S.L. Stephens. 2007. Climate change and growth scenarios for California wildfire. Climatic Change
and forest in the future: managing in the face of uncertainty. 109: 445463.
Ecological Applications 17(8): 21452151.
Miller, Hugh C. 2015. Personal correspondence to author.
National Park Service. US Department of the Interior. 2004. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to thank the
Lyons Ranches Historic District, Redwood National Park. following for advice, comments and critiques, often pro-
Cultural Landscape Inventory. Oakland, CA: National Park vided unknowingly in the midst of conversations on other
Service.
topics, ideas and priorities: Marcy Rockman, Veronica
. US Department of the Interior. 2005. Scottys Castle,
Malinay, Noah Kerr and Alison Lewis.
Death Valley National Park. Cultural Landscape Inventory.
San Francisco, CA: National Park Service.
. US Department of the Interior. 2010. Climate Change
Response Strategy. Fort Collins, Colorado: National Park AUTHOR Robert Z. Melnick, FASLA, is former dean
Service Climate Change Response Program. and professor of landscape architecture at the Univer-
. 2016. US Department of the Interior. The Secretary of the sity of Oregon, where he directs the Cultural Landscape
Interiors Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties Research Group. He is also a Senior Cultural Resources
+ Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes. Specialist at MIG, Inc., in Berkeley, California, and Port-
http://www.nps.gov/tps/standards/four-treatments/
land, Oregon. His professional career has been devoted
landscape-guidelines/index.htm.
to understanding and protecting cultural landscapes.
NW Climate Magazine. May 2015. Seattle: Northwest Climate
Science Center, University of Washington. Melnicks current research addresses the vulnerability
Odum, H.T. 1983. Systems Ecology: An Introduction. New York: of cultural landscapes in U.S. national parks to climate
John Wiley and Sons. change variables, and tools to mitigate those impacts.
Preston, Richard. 2007. A Death in the Forest. The
New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/
magazine/2007/12/10/a-death-in-the-forest
Safina, Carl. 2011. The View From Lazy Point. New York: Henry
Holt and Co.
Scarpino, Philip V. 1992. Planning for Preservation: A Look at the
Federal-State Historic Preservation Program, 19661986.
The Public Historian 14(2): 49- 66.
Semuels, Alana. 2015. The Village That Will Be Swept Away. The
Atlantic. 2015. 118. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/
archive/2015/08/alaska-village-climate-change/402604/.
Shoard. Marion. 1981. Why landscapes are harder to protect
than buildings. In Our Past Before Us: Why Do We Save It?
Eds. David Lowenthal and Marcus Binney. London: Temple
Smith.
Sprinkle, John H., Jr. 2007. Of Exceptional Importance: The
Origins of the Fifty-Year Rule in Historic Preservation. The
Public Historian 29 (2): 81103.

302 Landscape Journal 35:2