Unearthing the Impact of Climate Change on Cemeteries: From Floods to Wildlife Havens

In 2016, an unexpectedly catastrophic flood inundated communities across Louisiana. The skies dropped more than three times the amount of rain that fell during Hurricane Katrina, killing at least 13 people and damaging an estimated 146,000 homes.

The living were not the only ones affected: Hundreds of gravesites were disturbed across the state during the deluge. In the storm’s aftermath, officials struggled to identify the bodies within caskets that were scattered far from their burial sites or above ground tombs, which are common in Louisiana.

Around the world, extreme weather events are increasingly damaging gravesites, forcing communities to grapple with new ways to protect cemeteries as climate change accelerates. However, research shows that cemeteries can be climate havens as well, protecting the wildlife that surrounds them from rising temperatures and providing space for solar and other renewable energy innovations aimed at reducing emissions—if they are preserved.

Severe storms have repeatedly battered cemeteries or unearthed bodies in places ranging from Florida to Somalia. But it’s not just flooding that cemeteries have to contend with; wildfires are literally disintegrating headstones in California, while rising temperatures are thawing permafrost in Alaska, causing many Indigenous gravesites to sink, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“Climate change is showing that there actually isn’t really a good protocol or procedure to help with those kinds of issues, in terms of mitigating cemeteries from disasters, and how to recover them afterward,” Jennifer Blanks, a doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University who studies cemeteries, told USA Today.

Research shows that climate impacts disproportionately impact communities of color and the areas they bury their dead. When these gravesites are damaged, it can also erase critical pieces of Black American history, including evidence of the violence committed during the Jim Crow era. In Maryland, severe storms are eroding headstones in historic Black cemeteries, which residents are scrambling to protect by increasing storm drainage and restoration.

Following Louisiana’s 2016 floods, the state created a “Cemetery Response Task Force” to help recover and identify caskets after emergencies. As extreme weather events intensify, companies are popping up with the same mission, including Gulf Coast Forensic Solutions.

“It’s being able to give families a little bit of peace at the end of the day,” Charlie Hunter, the company’s CEO, told Science Friday, “and so I think that’s what’s really important. It’s a never-ending job.”

Local governments in the U.S. have implemented long-term strategies to protect gravesites from floods, including a cemetery seawall in Cohasset, Massachusetts. However, some experts say that states should focus on relocating particularly vulnerable cemeteries to safer (and deeper) grounds, which can have mental health consequences for families and cost as much as $10,000.

Though many cemeteries face a variety of threats from extreme weather, in some cases, they can offer a climate refuge. Along with being sacred places for families to honor their deceased, a wide body of research shows that cemeteries in urban areas provide critical habitat for wildlife.

For example, the Central Cemetery of Vienna is home to a thriving population of endangered wild hamsters, as well as deer, martens, and kestrels. In 2019, biologists from the U.S. Forest Service discovered an entirely new beetle species in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, which has offered a rare bit of green space for city-dwellers since the 1800s, reports National Geographic.

A recent study found that cemeteries in cities can also help mitigate the urban heat island effect—a phenomenon in which certain urbanized neighborhoods are hotter than nearby suburban and rural areas. Similar to public parks, cemeteries have ample tree cover and are sometimes several degrees cooler than their surroundings on a hot day. Experts say these types of green spaces will become crucial during heat waves, such as the one currently sweeping across the western U.S.

In other cases, some cities and towns are working to install solar panels above gravesites to generate electricity for local communities and help minimize further warming. One of these projects is located in densely populated Valencia, Spain, where city officials launched a project in May to install thousands of solar panels in three of its city-owned cemeteries. Dubbed Requiem in Power (RIP), the project will eventually generate power for municipal buildings and some homes and is supported by the Catholic Church, according to Alejandro Ramon, the city’s former climate councilor and a lead on the initiative.

“We are effectively in a situation of climate emergency here in Valencia,” Ramon told Fast Company. “Cemeteries will not only be a space where the deceased can rest, they will also become a place for the production of clean, local energy.”

In other climate news, the geoengineering space has had a tumultuous past few weeks, adding to the wave of backlash. On June 5, the Alameda, California, City Council voted to block the country’s first outdoor experiment to slow global warming using a technique aimed at brightening clouds.

However, as one project crumbles, others may be just starting: The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) recently announced that it will spend millions of dollars on studying geoengineering strategies to combat climate change. Though the group has previously expressed skepticism around geoengineering, EDF’s associate chief scientist Lisa Dilling told the New York Times that “this is something that I don’t think we can just ignore.”

Meanwhile, restaurant workers are rising up against employers as heat waves worsen their working conditions. Many individuals in the foodservice industry are forced to stand for hours in front of hot stoves and fryers, exacerbating their risk of heat stress. To demand better conditions and access to air conditioners, cooks around the country are walking out and unionizing.

Also in the food world, orange juice prices are currently spiking, following major crop losses in Brazil and Florida caused by disease and extreme weather. This fruit is one of many commodities struggling in the face of global warming, including sugar, cocoa, and coffee.