Climate Change Archaeology: building resilience from research in the world's coastal wetlands

Lead Research Organisation: University of Exeter
Department Name: Archaeology

Abstract

The proposed research starts from the knowledge that climate change is probably the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. This is particularly the case for the estimated 400 million people around the world living on land elevated less than 10 m above current sea level, because global warming will cause further sea-level rise. Current scenario planning by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) for this suggests that by the end of the 21st century, global sea-levels could be up to 0.59 m higher than today. Coastal communities are therefore amongst the first to experience the environmental impact of climate change, and the poorest individuals and communities are likely to have the least resilience to sea-level change, as adaptation is often a costly matter.

To date, very little attention has been given by organisations such as the IPCC and the responsible national organisations to how people in the past adapted to (natural) climate change. The essence of the proposed research is to see existing archaeological research as a repository of adaptive pathways, and to actively gather from this ideas and concepts that can help build the social resilience of communities in the face of rapid climate change. These ideas and concepts include social and occasionally technological and ecological adaptations to climate change and its environmental impacts. This has been termed Climate Change Archaeology.

The research question to be addressed in this project is: how can archaeological research in the world's coastal wetlands contribute to strengthening the resilience of local communities in the face of climate change? Specifically, the Fellowship will extend the research into this topic in the North Sea basin, to cover the Ahwar/Iraq Marshlands in the Persian Gulf, the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal, and the Florida's coastal wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico, in order to provide a global perspective to the research problem. The themes that are anticipated to emerge from this research are likely to underline the potential risks of short-term 'solutions' to the sustainability of coastal habitation, and the opportunities for long-term perspectives offered by archaeological research to constructively build resilience to climate change.

The proposed research values completed and published archaeological research as a repository of ways in which people in the past adapted to climate and environmental change. These adaptive pathways included changes in social, political, economical, technological and ritual aspects of past societies. It is fully recognised that such changes also occurred for reasons wholly unconnected to climate change but these can nevertheless contain important ideas and concepts on social, and occasionally technological and ecological, adaptations to climate change and its environmental impacts. Methodologically, the proposed research consists of a re-appraisal and analysis of published research, focussed on determining how climate, environmental and sea-level change (and neotectonics) during the Holocene shaped the coastal wetland, what pathways were developed by coastal communities to adapt to these environmental changes, and what we can learn from these pathways to strengthen the resilience of current coastal communities. These reviews of the published research will be enhanced with field visits and focused archival research.

The outputs of the proposed research are a monograph with the same title as the proposed project published by Oxford University Press (the Publishing Agreement has been signed), a peer-reviewed paper targeted at the community of climate change scientists (target journal: 'Climate Change'), a conference session at the 18th European Archaeological Association conference to be held in Helsinki, a presentation addressing coastal engineers and planners, two press releases and web pages dedicated to the project hosted on the University of Exeter website.

Planned Impact

By presenting a revaluation of the importance of peoples' sense of place and long-term relationship with the dynamic coastal environment, the most significant long-term impact of the proposed research will be on the IPCC and the national organisations that advise governments on the best way to adapt to the environmental impacts of climate change. In this way the proposed research will, beyond academia, benefit individuals and organisations in the public sector, the third/voluntary sector and members of the general public.

- In the public sector, potential beneficiaries include managers and policy makers, including heritage managers, who share responsibility for adapting coastal management to sea level rise and the effects of increased storminess.
- In the third/voluntary sector, potential beneficiaries include organisations with care for coastal landscapes and coastal heritage, such as the National Trust in the UK, a major owner of coastal land and landscapes, and the United Nations Environmental Programme, which has taken the lead in the restoration of the Ahwar/Iraq Marshlands.
- Amongst the general public, potential beneficiaries include coastal communities whose way of life is under threat from the rising sea level or from the management solutions that are imposed on their coast by planners and managers.

These individuals and organisations can benefit in a number of ways from the research. For example, implementation of coastal strategies (e.g. through Shoreline Management Plans in the UK, the Delta works in the Netherlands), has shown to date little regard for local sentiments, but recognizing the significance of peoples' sense of place and heritage and reflecting these in the coastal strategies, can add to the success of their implementation. Such an understanding will also empower local coastal communities to become active participants in finding solutions for the future.

The research has a cultural impact, in that it places value on coastal cultural landscapes that exemplify the sustainable use of the coast. This may lead to a greater awareness of the role of ancient dune systems, reed beds, salt marshes, mangrove forests and intertidal mudflats in mitigating the impact of sea-level rise. In this way, it also has an environmental impact, in that ancient and traditional management of the coast is more likely to provide sustainable solutions than modern engineering works that seek to put up barriers between the land and the sea. In this context, it is noteworthy that ancient landscapes are much more likely to be rich in biodiversity, and deliver a greater range of ecosystem services, than modern constructed landscapes. Finally, the research may have an impact on public services, in particular on the enhancement of the public enjoyment of the coast which impacts on public wellbeing, by raising awareness of the dynamic nature of most coasts, when understood in a long-term perspective.

Publications

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Van De Noort, Robert (2013) Climate Change Archaeology: Building Resilience from Research in the World's Coastal Wetlands

 
Description The findings from this research can be summarized by answering four questions.



Question 1: Is a long-term understanding of sea-level-coast interaction applied in coastal management?



The importance of understanding in detail the long-term perspective of past development and future sustainability in the coastal wetlands under study cannot be exaggerated. Sustainability can only be achieved once the natural processes have been taken fully into account, but in their planning for a future with an accelerating Eustatic Sea Level rise many stakeholders seem unaware of these. Wetlands such as mangrove swamps and saltmarshes can cope under natural circumstances with the predicted rise in sea level. However, few coastal wetlands in any of the four case studies exist in their natural context: sedimentation budgets have been reduced and much of the accommodation space removed, which will result in many coastal wetlands changing or drowning.



In and around the North Sea, something of a paradigm shift is taking place. Realizing the interconnectedness of the long-term geological and environmental coastal processes, the practice of constructing hard defences of ever greater size and height has been challenged, and a range of softer or hybrid solutions, such as managed realignment of the defences or tidal barrages, is increasingly identified as the preferred alternative. This development has emerged from the political context of the European Union and has been enforced by legal frameworks such as the European Union Habitats directive of 1992. At international and national levels, the integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) approach has become the norm, shown for example in the transnational cooperation on the Waddensea. The ICZM approach brings together the various stakeholders, and whilst this in itself is not a remedy for overcoming all differences, it does encourage the discussion of sustainable solutions that reflect the detailed understanding of long-term sea-level-coast interaction.



Such an integrated approach to coastal zone management does not exist in the Sundarbans. The ongoing dispute between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal over the Farakka Barrage not only thwarts international cooperation, but also precludes any attempt to apply the emerging long-term understanding of sea-level-coastal interaction to coastal management. This is illustrated in WWF-India's (2011) plan for the Sundarbans, which ignores altogether the long-term geological and environmental perspectives and the interconnectedness of the Sundarbans as an ecosystem across the Indian-Bangladeshi border. Meanwhile coastal communities continue to be at risk from flooding, and the long-term perspective detailed in this study indicates that the risk of erosion and flooding will increase significantly in the 21st century.



On Florida's Gulf Coast, the application of the understanding of the long-term sea-level-coast interaction, and its use within an ICZM approach, has been frustrated by the primacy of private landownership and the right to develop one's property with only limited regard for environmental impacts. The situation is aggravated by the political non-acceptance of the findings from climate change science, along with the ongoing disagreements amongst coastal managers, researchers and politicians on the impact of climate change on sea-level rise. As a consequence, coastal defence schemes are often not sustainable and do not address the concerns of all stakeholders. This is most appropriately illustrated in the increasing requirement for beach nourishment projects. These are instigated to ensure that beaches and beach barriers are not degraded to the point that they fail to function as coastal defences. The main source of sand, however, from the submerged part of the Florida Plateau, is rapidly diminishing; additionally, the grain size is different to that of aeolian blown sand, leading to a degeneration of the coast's ecological value.



In the case of the Iraqi Marshlands, the understanding of long-term geological and environmental processes is fully integrated in post-Ba'ath Iraq. The restoration of the Marshlands involves all stakeholder groups, brought together when the wetlands were on the brink of destruction. However, despite the fact that the seedbank proved to be resilient to the impact of drainage in the 1990s, and that the natural Phragmites stands are demonstrably effective in their ability to clean polluted water, the recent changes to the hydrogeology of the wider region makes a successful outcome of the restoration project doubtful.



Question 2: Is an understanding of past successes and failures applied in coastal management?



In the 21 millennia since the Last Glacial Maximum, human communities have developed a number of adaptive pathways in dealing with the impact of sea-level rise. The most common response has been to migrate to higher and drier lands. This was the only option available to communities living on the North Sea Plain, the Florida Plateau and the lower Mesopotamian Plain, where the rising sea level submerged large tracts of land. However, because marine resources such as fish and shellfish continued to draw communities to the coasts, adaptive pathways had to be revised to make this possible. The most successful adaptive pathways in the middle and later parts of the Holocene were those involving the development of coastal settlements that were safe from flooding, but which did not seek to disrupt the dynamic interaction between sea-level rise and coastal development. Examples include the terps of the North Sea, the mud-walled towns of the Sundarbans and the shell rings, shell mounds and shell complexes of Florida. On the lower Mesopotamian Plain, the early towns rose above the land in the process of tell formation, making them safe from the annual floods, whilst the Ma'dan moved their houses -which could be easily dismantled and re-assembled- in times of flood.



Adaptive pathways that failed have been observed in all regions and tend to be of more recent age. Unsurprisingly, they reflect solutions that are the opposite of the successful adaptive pathways. In the North Sea, for example, failures include the degeneration of the marine and intertidal ecosystem through the combined impacts of over-fishing and the effective separation of the sea from the land, following the construction of continuous dikes. In the Sundarbans, the reclamation of the coastal wetlands over the last three centuries included the construction of bunds around the islands, and a clearing of the mangrove swamps to make way for agriculture and settlements. As a direct consequence of this activity the natural ability of the islands to respond and adjust to rising sea levels has been weakened, and floods are now an annual occurrence involving significant loss of life. In Florida, the ecological degeneration of the Everglades provides a clear warning that coastal wetlands can not simply be engineered; this is also the message from the Iraqi Marshlands.



Coastal management in the North Sea has only just begun to seek to apply an understanding of past successes and failures, most notably through the shift from hard defences to softer or hybrid solutions (see above). Continuous dikes have been constructed here for over 1000 years and it is only recently that their adverse impacts on the marine and intertidal ecosystems have become apparent. Furthermore, in a time when sea level rises faster, the use of soft defences and coastal wetlands that can adjust autogenically are not only a more cost-effective solution but can also provide habitats for migrating birds, as well as helping to restore the natural ecosystems.



In the Sundarbans, an understanding of past successes and failures is not applied in coastal management. The rapidly growing population in India and Bangladesh, and the political movement giving underprivileged groups the right to land and a homestead, discourages the concentration of the rural population in centres away from the islands' edges; the restoration of the mangrove forests is therefore prevented. There are early warnings of over-fishing, and of the adverse impact of aquaculture on the environment.



In Florida, little or no evidence exists for the application of past successes and failures in coastal management. Despite the recent history of environmental disaster in the Everglades, and the clearly unsustainable nature of beach nourishment (see above), politicians, developers and the public continue to put faith in the ability of the US Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Florida to keep the sea from flooding the land or eroding the beach barriers. However, a notable exception should be made for the communities of Seminole Indians in the Everglades, who retain many aspects of living sustainably in a wetland landscape.



In the Iraqi Marshlands, the restoration of the Marshlands has become a cause celebre for a range of stakeholders. The devastating human and environmental impacts of the deliberate drainage of 1990s made many people realize that a future without the Marshlands was not a desirable one. The traditional way of life of the Ma'dan, held up as a paragon of how to live sustainably in this wetland landscape, has become symbolic of a highly successful adaptive pathway to environmental change. Much has been learnt here from past failures.



Question 3: Is attention given to communities' sense of place in coastal management?



The sense of place among coastal communities is an essential component of their socio-ecological resilience. After all, socio-ecological resilience has been defined as the ability of communities to adapt to environmental changes without losing the characteristics that define the distinctiveness and values of each community. Recognition of local communities' sense of place is also important for combating climate change itself. The scientific findings of the IPCC, and the protocols of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), are frequently contested or resisted not least because of their very high level of abstraction, both geographically and temporally. The local experience of climate change can, in fact, be the opposite of what has been projected in the various SRES scenarios. For communities to 'think global, act local', such abstractions need to be expressed in terms of the challenges that communities will face, including an estimation of how climate change will affect their sense of place .



Around the North Sea -where the self-reflected social identity is frequently defined by the closeness to, dependence on, or fight against the sea- communities' sense of place is well defined, and continues to play an important part in developing adaptive pathways. Monuments that keep the social memory of great engineering feats and great flood disasters alive can be found in many places. Despite the risks associated with living below the sea level, and the confidence placed in strong dikes, communities value their physical connection to the sea. The relationship is important for general wellbeing and the (tourism) economy, whilst increased connectivity -through softer coastal management solutions and tidal barrages- supports healthier marine and estuarine ecosystems. The sense of place of coastal communities, and an acknowledgment of its significance, has helped to build the social capital that has made the inclusive ICZM approach possible.



In the Sundarbans, the continued veneration of Bonbibi and the persisting values of the forests in the punthi literature show that some elements of the traditional sense of place survive. However, the hunger for land has put this traditional belief system under severe pressure, and there is little evidence that everyday coastal management takes much account of the sense of place of local communities. Institutions based outside the Sundarbans have sought, and continue to seek, the exclusion of local people from a large number of islands for the purpose of nature conservation. This exclusion fails to respect the traditional way of life or sense of place of local communities, who cherished the forests as a vital resource for wood cutters, honey collectors, salt makers and forest fishers, especially in times of hardship.



On Florida's Gulf Coast, there is no evidence that coastal communities' traditional sense of place plays a role in coastal management, again with the notable exception of the Seminole reserves. One could suggest that a new sense of place is emerging amongst the modern Floridians and the 'snowbirds' or retirees who overwinter on Florida's Gulf Coast. This is a sense of place that values the sun and the magnificence of the coast, but one that has few roots in the past and is definitely not sustainable in a time when the Eustatic Sea Level rise is accelerating.



In the Iraqi Marshlands the sense of place of the Ma'dan is now highly regarded. Having experienced the devastating impacts of the drainage of the Marshlands, the traditions of the Ma'dan have become a by-word for living sustainably in a fragile wetland landscape. National and international institutions work with the Ma'dan to provide basic sanitary provisions such as clean drinking water, but this is never intended to undermine the traditions and sense of place.



Question 4: Are logistical solutions from the past adopted in coastal management?



In this study, not many logistical solutions from the past that could be adopted in coastal management in the present have been identified. This is, principally, a direct consequence of the population growth in recent times, which places such a high premium on land by the sea that the more expansive solutions from the past are no longer options. Nevertheless, one particular concept deserves further attention.



Intertidal zones are resource rich areas, and this was very well understood in the past. In the North Sea, saltmarshes were used as grazing ground from at least 1500 cal BC, and between 500 cal BC and AD 1000 specialist communities lived on the terps, optimizing the saltmarshes as grazing grounds. In the Sundarbans, the intertidal sandbanks that emerged in the delta were used successfully for rice cultivation, with salt-tolerant species such as boro rice being selected. All intertidal waters are rich in fish and shellfish because of the very high levels of nutrients that supply the food web, released by the action of the tides; this has attracted many communities to settle by the sea, most extensively on Florida's Gulf Coast. Intertidal zones also provide materials for building shelters, and there is no better example of this than the reed-built houses in the Iraqi Marshlands.



Around the world, coastal wetlands are being recognized for their value in nature conservation and coastal protection, but this frequently seems to involve the exclusion of people. For example, the majority of managed realignment projects in the North Sea and in the newly-created forest reserves on tidal islands in the Sundarbans have no place for local communities, despite the fact that the symbiotic relationship of communities with these landscapes stretches back millennia. In the case of the saltmarshes of the North Sea, it has been shown that their managed utilization as pasture increased their biodiversity. In the Sundarbans where people entered the forest for many centuries, there is no evidence for resource depletion of the forests or of the decline in numbers of the Royal Bengal Tiger. In the Iraqi Marshlands, the harvesting of reed and reedmace helps to create a diverse mosaic of wetlands within the marshes, which increases biodiversity. Thus, one practical solution from the past is to allow coastal communities to benefit economically from coastal wetlands. Such a solution would not only help to reconnect a broader diversity of stakeholders with sustainable coastal wetland management, but would also deliver greater biodiversity.



The results of this comparative overview have been summarized in Figure 54. Three cross-cutting findings are revealed.



First, this comparative study has shown that Nicholas Stern's warning -that the poorest coastal communities are likely to have the least resilience to sea-level change, as adaptation is often a costly matter (Stern 2006; see chapter 1) - is wholly justified. The coastal communities in the Sundarbans are already experiencing extensive floods, with loss of life, displacement and loss of livelihoods an annual occurrence. There is little prospect of a plan that will safeguard their future. In contrast, the relative wealth of institutions in and around the North Sea and on Florida's Gulf Coast have ensured that costly engineering works -ranging from the construction of dikes and barriers to managed realignment and beach nourishment- have staved off the short-term impacts of sea-level rise.



Second, the value of collaboration and the adoption of an integrated coastal zone management approach (ICZM) to coastal change have been highlighted. In and around the North Sea, this has become a standard way of working. Here, collaboration extends across national borders and includes a great diversity of stakeholders who will have to recognize each others' rights and responsibilities. This collaborative process strengthens the adaptive pathway of coastal communities and builds their socio-economic resilience. In contrast, the coastal management of Florida is of a piecemeal and fragmented nature. The quality of the relationship between private ownership and public responsibilities has been recognized as a key determinant in successful and sustainable management of coastal wetlands (e.g. Adger and Luttrell 2000), but on Florida's Gulf Coast a good working relationship is largely absent.



Third, the case of the Iraqi Marshlands was included in this study to provide an example of a post-environmental disaster. Whilst the Marshlands were deliberately drained for political reasons their loss, and the loss of the traditional way of life of the Ma'dan, was recognized as environmentally and humanely insupportable. The cost of restoration of the Al-Ahwar to date has been high, and its longer-term prospects are not good when the regional changes in hydrogeology are taken into consideration. The lesson to learn from this is to acknowledge that the proactive protection of coastal wetlands such as saltmarshes, mangrove swamps, and reedbeds while they still exist should always be the preferred option; once they are destroyed the cost of restoration will be much greater, assuming it is possible at all.
Exploitation Route The information from this research is relevant for governmental and non-governmental organizations involved in coastal flood protection and nature conservation by providing unusually long-term perspectives on the sustainable use of coasts in the contexts of climate change-driven sea-level rise.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Environment,Security and Diplomacy
 
Description Flood, storms, and climate change; the need for a longer-term perspective 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? Yes
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact A blog on the OUPBlog site connecting the research outcomes from this project with the floods in the UK in January-February 2014

A blog linking the outcomes of the project Climate Change Archaeology with the extensive and prolonged flooding of the Somerset Levels and a rise in the levels of the River Thames
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://blog.oup.com/2014/02/uk-floods-storms-climate-change-long-term-perspective/
 
Description Key note speech, postgraduate conference, University of Cambridge 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A key note speech for the conference 'Modern Climate Change and the Practice of Archaeology', held in Jesus College, University of Cambridge on 7 April 2017.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc/conference.html
 
Description Key note: Resilience, Impact and Perceptions in the Past and Present, Archaeological and interdisciplinary Perspectives 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Key note speech to the conference 'Resilience, Impact and Perceptions in the Past and Present, Archaeological and interdisciplinary Perspectives', held on the 4th - 5th December 2015 at Durham University, Department of Archaeology
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/conferences/current/climatechange/