Definitions

As outlined in The National Disaster Recovery Framework and the Recovery Federal Interagency Operational Plan natural and cultural resources include the following:

Natural resources:

  • Land, fish, wildlife, biota, and water.

    Water means salt and fresh water, surface and ground water used for drinking, irrigation, aquaculture, and recreational purposes as well as in its capacity as fish and wildlife habitat.

Cultural resources:

  • Aspects of a cultural system that are valued by, or significantly representative of, a culture or that contain significant information about a culture.
  • Cultural resources may be tangible entities or cultural practices.
  • Tangible cultural resources are categorized as districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects for the National Register of Historic Places and as archaeological resources, cultural landscapes, structures, museum objects and archives, and ethnographic resources for Federal management purposes.
  • Also includes cultural items as that term is defined in Section 2(3) of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act [25 USC 3001(3)]; and archaeological resources, as that term is defined in section 3(1) of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 [16 USC 470bb(1)]
  • Historic properties are any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure, or object included , or eligible for inclusion, in the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Historic properties also include artifacts, records, and material remains, which are related to such districts, sites, building structures, or objects.

Columbia-SC-Bill-Koplitz-FEMA-Lake-Elizabeth-Great-EgretsWEB.jpg

Photo Credit: FEMA, Bill Koplitz

Was this page helpful?

Please provide a comment