A Methodology for the Assessment of Climate Change Adaptation Options for Cultural Heritage Sites

Cultural sites are particularly important to Indigenous peoples, their identity, cosmology and sociopolitical traditions. The benefits of local control, and a lack of professional resources, necessitate the development of planning tools that support independent Indigenous cultural site adaptation. We devised and tested a methodology for non-heritage professionals to analyse options that address site loss, build site resilience and build local adaptive capacity. Indigenous rangers from Kakadu National Park and the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, Arnhem Land, Australia, were engaged as fellow researchers via a participatory action research methodology. Rangers rejected coastal defences and relocating sites, instead prioritising routine use of a risk field survey, documentation of vulnerable sites using new digital technologies and widely communicating the climate change vulnerability of sites via a video documentary. Results support the view that rigorous approaches to cultural site adaptation can be employed independently by local Indigenous stakeholders

Local and Indigenous management of climate change risks to archaeological sites

Hundreds of thousands of significant archaeological and cultural heritage sites (cultural sites) along the coasts of every continent are threatened by sea level rise, and many will be destroyed. This wealth of artefacts and monuments testifies to human history, cosmology and identity. While cultural sites are especially important to local and Indigenous communities, a stall in coordinated global action means adaptation at a local scale is often unsupported. In response, this paper produces a practical climate change risk analysis methodology designed for independent, community-scale management of cultural sites. It builds on existing methods that prioritise sites most at risk from climate impacts, proposing a field survey that integrates an assessment of the relative cultural value of sites with assessment of exposure and sensitivity to climate impacts. The field survey also stands as a monitoring program and complements an assessment of organisational adaptive capacity. The preliminary field survey was tested by Indigenous land managers in remote northern Australia at midden and rock art sites threatened by sea level rise, extreme flood events and a range of non-climactic hazards. A participatory action research methodology—incorporating planning workshops, semi-structured interviews and participant observations—gave rise to significant modifications to the preliminary field survey as well as management prioritisation of 120 sites. The field survey is anticipated to have global application, particularly among marginalised and remote Indigenous communities. Well planned and informed participation, with community control, monitoring and well-informed actions, will contribute significantly to coordinated global and regional adaptation strategies.Fieldwork was supported by the Australian Research Council (Linkage Project LP110201128 and Discovery Project DP120100512), the Australian National University and Charles Darwin University

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Australian Indigenous rangers managing the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage sites

Over 100 Australian Indigenous ranger groups manage a significant proportion of Australia’s natural and cultural resources. Two Indigenous ranger groups in Australia’s monsoonal far north are concerned about a perceived escalation of impacts on cultural heritage sites arising from climate change, variation and extremes. A preliminary version of a tool to assist them in managing these impacts was synthesised from other community-based climate adaptation tools. It contained phases for scoping, risk analysis and options analysis. In the testing and further development of the tool, rangers identified risks to shell mounds and middens (remains of shellfish meals that have accumulated over time), earth mounds (mounds of earth that contain cultural material) and rock art (paintings and engravings found in caves and open sites) caused by more frequent and extreme sea level rise events, and inland river flooding events. They set goals, considered barriers and assessed the availability of appropriate resources. During the tools risk analysis phase, rangers sought to prioritise sites with the greatest exposure and sensitivity to not only the identified climate impacts but also a range of other threats such as fi re and feral animals. While the risk analysis phase used a modified field survey approach, it sought to complement the original model with a cultural value assessment methodology that would allow further prioritisation on the basis of site significance. To date, over 100 sites have been assessed with the tool and allocated one of five possible management priorities. In considering adaptive options, rangers confronted limits to climate change adaptation for the prioritised heritage sites. For sites most in peril from climate extremes, digital documentation was chosen over salvage or physical protection. However, rangers were concerned that confinement of sites to a database would undermine their ongoing use of them in traditional cultural practice. They therefore considered the possibility of combining photogrammetry-derived 3-D models with augmented-reality applications to re-experience lost sites in their original non-virtual locations. Validation of ranger group organisational capacity to use the climate change planning tool bodes well for its use by other Indigenous ranger groups

Coproduction mechanisms to weave Indigenous knowledge, artificial intelligence, and technical data to enable Indigenous-led adaptive decision making: lessons from Australia’s joint managed Kakadu National Park

Most of the planet’s vital ecosystems are managed on lands owned by Indigenous peoples. Indigenous people face many challenges in managing these lands, including rapidly growing threats causing species extinctions and ecosystem losses. In response, many Indigenous groups are looking for ethical ways to use digital technology and data analytical tools to support their existing knowledge practices to solve complex environmental management problems. We draw on an action co-research project to show how a range of knowledge coproduction mechanisms were developed and applied to weave Indigenous knowledge, artificial intelligence (AI), and technical sources to monitor the health of Nardab, a culturally significant and Ramsar-listed wetland in Australia's World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park. The coproduction mechanisms included: holistic assessments of the health of indicators; a dynamic and creative decision-support tool to adaptively manage a complex system; ongoing monitoring and testing of knowledge used for collaborative action; and Indigenous-led governance of research activities and impact at local and regional scales. It was important for local Bininj traditional owners to determine where and how multiple sources of evidence could or should be used and applied to direct and assess on-the-ground actions as part of this collaborative and cross-cultural knowledge sharing and coproduction process. At Nardab, this required negotiating the evidence from qualitative Indigenous-led assessments of significant sites and quantitative ecological information collected and analyzed from cameras and drone surveys. The coproduction mechanisms developed provided a practical and ethical means of empowering different sources of knowledge for adaptive decision making while respecting and protecting differences in how knowledge is generated, interpreted, and applied

The risk of COVID-19 death is much greater and age dependent with type I IFN autoantibodies

International audienceSignificance There is growing evidence that preexisting autoantibodies neutralizing type I interferons (IFNs) are strong determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia. It is important to estimate their quantitative impact on COVID-19 mortality upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, by age and sex, as both the prevalence of these autoantibodies and the risk of COVID-19 death increase with age and are higher in men. Using an unvaccinated sample of 1,261 deceased patients and 34,159 individuals from the general population, we found that autoantibodies against type I IFNs strongly increased the SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rate at all ages, in both men and women. Autoantibodies against type I IFNs are strong and common predictors of life-threatening COVID-19. Testing for these autoantibodies should be considered in the general population