Cultural Landscape Heritage in the time of Climate Change

This lecture will be an exploration of issues around cultural landscape protection and climate change, with special attention to the evolving tools employed to integrate climate science knowledge with cultural landscape analysis and management. This work reflects current on-going research.

Robert Z. Melnick, FASLA, is Professor of Landscape Architecture and former dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon.  From 2005 to 2007 he was a visiting senior program officer at the Getty Foundation, with responsibility for the Campus Heritage Initiative. Melnick, co-editor of Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America (2000), has published widely on theoretical and practical issues relating to cultural and historic landscapes. His written works and professional projects have received numerous national awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Melnick was vice-chair of the first board of the NPS National Center for Preservation and Technology and Training, and chair of the board of Oregon Humanities, the statewide humanities council.  He earned his BA at Bard College and his MLA at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. In 1980 he served as the first Historical Landscape Architect in the National Park Service, and subsequently co-authored National Register Bulletin 30 on rural landscapes. He is currently investigating issues surrounding climate change and how we understand and protect cultural landscapes.