Climate change, specifically flooding, causes loss of cultural heritage. Not every resource can be saved through physical measures, so documentation of communities before they flood is necessary. The Tennessee Valley Authority intentionally flooded dozens of communities during the twentieth century using dams to create electricity and provide flood control in the Tennessee Valley. This thesis examines the documentation of three of those communities through archival research and investigation of government documents, using it to create a documentation program proposal for flood-prone communities today. The proposed program contains a triage system for determining the order of communities to be documented and draws from the National Park Service’s existing documentation programs.
