(CS3.5) Up the River: Flooding, Climate Change, and Rural Preservation in Guerneville, California

Guerneville, a historic resort town located in unincorporated Sonoma County, California, is at a crossroads. Beset by increasingly frequent and severe flood events, the historic fabric of Guerneville's Main Street and surrounding resort sites is threatened by both climate change and social and economic vulnerability. This presentation addresses Guerneville’s unique historic context–its origins as a logging town in the 19th century, its development into a tourism economy in the early 20th century and later revival as a “gay resort town” in the 1970s, and its current economic struggles– and the urgency of climate adaptation planning within its current community. Addressing climate change resiliency in historic preservation is an increasingly urgent matter in historic preservation, one that is especially complex in rural and socially vulnerable communities without strong preservation frameworks. Like many other small rural communities, Guerneville has struggled to retain and preserve its historic resources, fighting against lack of planning infrastructure, natural disasters made more severe by climate change, and a historic landscape already made vulnerable by economic instability. Its unique history and character (including its status as a popular gay resort town in the late twentieth century), makes preservation of its historic resources especially urgent. This project examines Guerneville’s historic and cultural resources in the context of climate adaptation, using it as a case study for the process of implementing preservation planning in climate-vulnerable communities. Through analysis of flood mitigation and rehabilitation strategies, local preservation planning tools, and public outreach and engagement methods, this presentation addresses the challenge of implementing preservation in communities with entwined social and environmental vulnerability, and suggests frameworks for locally addressing preservation and adaptation needs.