Mapping Climate Risk to Cultural Resources in the Southwest

Authors: Akriti Khadka, Brandon McWilliams

The many cultural resources in the U.S. Southwest represent the tangible and intangible heritage of human societies. Yet cultural resources are often underrepresented in climate adaptation planning. A new tool developed through a partnership between the USDA Southwest Climate Hub and the Forest Service Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center is helping to fill this gap. This fact sheet presents an introduction and overview to the Cultural Resources Exposure Assessment Toolbox Experience (CREATE), a geospatial decision-support tool designed to assess the climate exposure of cultural resources across national forests in Arizona and New Mexico.