National Park Service Workshop Grant to Establish Best Practices for Assessing Vulnerability of Southwest Cultural Resources

Several projects on vulnerability assessments has been completed for cultural resources within the NPS, but these efforts have primarily been focused on impacts associated with sea level rise, inundation, and other environmental factors that have little or no direct association with impacts to cultural resources found in the US Southwest. The Southwestern environment is distinctive, and Southwestern cultural resources are significantly different than those found in the eastern US, particularly the remnant ancient architecture that is comprised of fragile and actively deteriorating traditional building materials. Additionally, in the southwestern US, tribal and other traditional communities are extremely invested in the preservation of these resources, and their viewpoints and cultural expertise should be included in recommendations for treatment/adaptation approaches in order to ensure that the NPS is not negatively impacting cultural significance, including intangibles. The products and outcomes of this workshop will support more effective use of project funds, staffing, and other capacities in developing Vulnerability Assessments (VAs) that benefit the parks and allow VT Program¿level assessments of priority needs.
Workshop products will include:
o A user-friendly guidelines document or guidebook that defines common understanding of terminology and best practices for VAs specific to western archeological/cultural resources, and lists a `network of practitioners¿ critical to continued discussions and refinement of VAs for western US cultural resources.
o Workshop notes, background materials, and presentations to be posted on an accessible website for NPS VT Program parks.
o Brief letter reports (2-3) for project updates to ATR.

B. Project Objectives ¿

Investigators from Boise State University (BSU) and NPS staff will collaborate to accomplish the following specific objectives:
o Develop a working group of partners to further refine the workshop agenda and define preliminary workshop participants.
o Plan for approximately 30 participants with a range of expertise and experience at the workshop to allow for effective discussions and focused product development.
o Develop invitations to workshop participants and provide for ¿google doc¿ or other appropriate shared access to the most critical documents for the workshop participants to review before the workshop.