What is Cultural Resource Mapping?
Dewberry Geospatial Analyst Delaney Resweber explains cultural resource mapping in about 90 seconds.
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Hello, my name is Delaney Resweber, I'm a geospatial analyst with Dewberry, with a background in historic preservation. Today, I want to talk to you guys about cultural resource mapping, what it is and why is it important. So, what are these resources? These resources typically are archeology sites, houses, other buildings, bridges, cemeteries, anything that reflects the human built environment.
Oftentimes, these resources are protected on a national, state, and local level. Particularly, there's a 1966 Historic Preservation Act that makes you do a review of any properties that might be adversely affected through a Section 106 process if you're using federal money or federal land for that project. And we need to understand where these sites are located in order to best protect them. Oftentimes, in the past, they would have had to go into physical archives in order to find these resources and understand where they're located. And sometimes, some of these resources would be overlooked and be demolished by accident, because they didn't realize they were there. And that's why it's important to have them mapped geographically on an app that allows people to quickly find these resources and know where they are.
This application also allows people to be able to understand other attributes of these resources, like what is an architectural style that's popular amongst these resources? Or, what period were most of these buildings built? Are they associated with important people? What maybe criterion they fall under on the National Register, which can help provide further insight and future research opportunities that you might not be able to get as easily with just paper resources. This is why mapping cultural resources is important. It allows researchers the full scope of the area so they can best protect and mitigate harm from cultural resources so that they are not destroyed.
In the past ten years, federal, state, and local governments have started to invest more and more in this emerging technology. GIS professionals can help aid and assist in the development of these new products.