Policy Memorandum 15-01 

To: All Employees

From:

Subject: Addressing Climate Change and Natural Hazards for Facilities

This Policy Memorandum provides guidance on the design of facilities to incorporate impacts of 

climate change adaptation and natural hazards when making decisions in national parks. It is the 

third “policy pillar” of our Service-wide climate change response. It joins the March 6, 2012, 

Policy Memorandum 12-02, Applying National Park Service Management Policies in the 

Context of Climate Change, which addressed the implications of climate change on the guiding 

principles of National Park Service (NPS) natural resource management. It also joins the 

February 10, 2014, Policy Memorandum 14-02, Climate Change and Stewardship of Cultural 

Resources, which provided guidance and direction on the stewardship of cultural resources in 

relation to climate change.

Facilities play a critical role in the mission of the Service: they house our employees, protect and 

store equipment and materials, demonstrate sustainable design to our visitors, provide context for 

periods significant to our history, and connect the Service with the public. The Service has the 

responsibility to invest wisely in these facilities for the long term. Unquestionably, climate 

change and natural hazards pose a significant threat to our investment in current and future NPS

facilities. This Policy Memorandum, in conjunction with the Level 3 guidance, Addressing 

Climate Change and Natural Hazards Handbook (Handbook), will help park personnel in 

planning and designing facilities that are responsive to the existing and projected climate change 

and other natural hazards. Managers must apply the guidance in the Handbook. The Associate 

Director for Park Planning, Facilities and Lands has the authority to update the Handbook 

periodically as necessary.

Managers and planners are required to complete a checklist (found in the Handbook) as a guide, 

and to identify and outline baseline information and assessments for specific NPS assets. Using 

the information from the checklist and the background baseline data for a given asset, park 

managers will have identified potential risks associated with climate change and other natural 

hazards. The Handbook’s checklist includes the range of natural hazards as well as a detailed 

hazard assessment for coastal storm surge in the context of sea level rise. Future versions of the 

Handbook will include updated information on how to handle other specific hazards. We 

anticipate that other facility related handbooks may be developed for additional topics in the 

future to help facility managers respond more effectively to climate change
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Background

As I stated in the Climate Change Response Strategy (2010), “I believe climate change is 

fundamentally the greatest threat to the integrity of our national parks that we have ever

experienced. The current science confirms that the planet is warming, and the effects are here 

and now.” The NPS was established to conserve natural landscapes and historic places 

significant to the American people and their stories in a way that allows current and future 

generations to enjoy these sites long into the future. To respond adequately to climate change 

and to fulfill our mission, NPS managers and employees must incorporate knowledge and 

develop approaches based upon not only natural hazards known today, but also those that 

potentially will affect our resources, facilities, and infrastructure into the future.

Authorities

Various Executive Orders, Departmental guidance, and NPS authorities establish the legal and 

policy foundation for management approaches that the Service uses to address current and future 

effects of climate change. These authorities currently include the following:

Executive Office of the President

• Executive Order 13653 of November 1, 2013 (Preparing the United States for the Impacts 

of Climate Change)

• The President’s Climate Action Plan (June 2013)

Department of the Interior

• Secretarial Order No. 3289 of September 14, 2009 (Addressing the Impacts of Climate 

Change on America’s Water, Land, and Other Natural and Cultural Resources), 

Amendment No. 1

• Climate Change Adaptation Plan (2012-2014)

• Part 523 of the Department of the Interior Manual (Climate Change Policy)(2012)

National Park Service

• NPS Management Policies (2006)

• Climate Change Response Strategy (2010)

• Climate Change Action Plan (2012-2014)

• A Call to Action: Preparing for a Second Century of Stewardship and Engagement

(August 25, 2011, as updated in 2012, 2013, 2014)

• Green Parks Plan (2012)

The guidance included in this Policy Memorandum will be integrated, as applicable, into all 

actions stemming from the documents listed above. Chapter 9 of NPS Management Policies

(2006) outlines several foundational approaches to planning, design, and integration of facilities 

into the park environment that align with the purpose of this Policy Memorandum. Section 

9.1.1.5, Siting Facilities to Avoid Natural Hazards, states, “The Service will strive to site 

facilities where they will not be damaged or destroyed by natural physical processes.” 

Additionally, it states that the design and location of facilities and infrastructure must be based 

upon a “thorough understanding of the nature of the physical processes” and that the Service 
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must avoid or mitigate “the risks to human life and property.” The principles and practices 

outlined in documents listed above and the attached Handbook create a framework for future 

guidance in this rapidly evolving area.

This Policy Memorandum is intended only to improve the internal management of the NPS, and 

is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 

enforceable at law or equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, 

instrumentalities or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

Scope

This Policy Memorandum is intended for all NPS managers and employees who are part of the 

decision-making process for the budgeting, scoping, design, planning, construction, and 

maintenance of facilities across the Service.

The focus of this Policy Memorandum is to incorporate known climate change impacts and 

natural hazards into the decision-making process for NPS facilities, including cultural and 

historic sites and assets. It is not intended to provide direction or guidance in our immediate 

response to natural hazard incidents, such as that of the Incident Command System and teams 

(found in Director’s Order #55: Incident Management Program).

Policy

NPS managers and their teams must proactively identify and document facility vulnerabilities to 

climate change and other natural hazards. The guidance in this Policy Memorandum broadly 

frames climate change and natural hazard response in the three questions below.

Natural hazard and climate change risks are most easily managed by planning for avoidance,

resilience, or adaptation before events occur. Therefore, decision makers should use this 

guidance to identify options throughout all levels of facility planning and design. To ensure 

consideration and better understanding of the hazards facing a park, the natural hazard checklist

in the Handbook will be required as part of a Regional or Servicewide Development Advisory 

Board submission. Reviews by those groups will cover the following questions:

Question 1: What natural hazards apply at this location?

For locations that are vulnerable to the effects of climate change or other natural hazards, 

managers must work to evaluate the immediate and projected risks. This evaluation process 

must rely on multi-disciplinary professional judgment. No single solution or simple formula can 

be relied upon Service-wide to address how these risks should be handled on every project. The 

Handbook includes a Natural Hazard Checklist that serves as a screening tool to be used at the 

earliest stages of project planning to determine the most likely natural hazards a project may 

confront.

Question 2: How important are these assets to the park?

The condition, mission importance, and significance of assets are already being evaluated and 

recorded for a large variety of decisions. These data are independent of any natural hazard, and 

are basic attributes that must be known to allow sound decision-making related to park priorities 
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in light of limited resources. These resources provide the foundation for decisions when 

planning park improvements in an area susceptible to a natural hazard.

Question 3: What measures are going to be taken to promote resilience?

This Policy Memorandum and the accompanying Handbook address our evolving and NPSspecific understanding of all natural hazard risks to park facilities and infrastructure, and the 

effects of climate change on these. The natural hazards that exist today in our parks, programs, 

and offices may not be the same ones that impact our resources and assets in the future. These

new guidelines work to identify natural hazards and provide, through an evolving process, 

decision-making strategies, such as quantitative risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis that 

should result in lower overall physical and financial risk to the Service and our visitors. This 

guidance provides sources for such data and questions you should address as you make facility 

planning and design decisions.

Future Actions

Going forward, all decisions will be informed by an increased understanding and appreciation of 

climate change impacts and other natural hazards. Park managers should use current science on 

climate change, as well as the guidance from existing park plans, before creating projects in the 

Project Management Information System. Scientific information regarding climate change 

impacts is rapidly developing and we should not assume that decisions made in planning 

documents five or 10 years ago still provide the best on-going solution for climate change 

adaptation and resilience.

During the design and construction phase, alternatives should be evaluated using sound science

to make assets more resilient and adaptive through innovative design options. As has been 

policy, we will continue to utilize value analysis methods in our decision-making.

I am proud and very appreciative of all the hard work and actions we have already taken together 

to increase the resilience of NPS facilities to a wide variety of natural hazard risks. Using these 

new guidelines, we will continue to drive progress in our NPS response to climate change and 

natural hazards that affect our facilities.

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