Towards a climate‐smart cultural heritage management

Globally, cultural heritage is on the front line of anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, it could be argued that climate change should now be a primary lens through which cultural heritage conservation and management are viewed. We argue that addressing the growing and compounding risks and impacts of climate change requires a fundamental rethink and transformation of cultural heritage management and policy. In this article, we propose a climate-smart cultural heritage (CSCH) approach that captures the notion that climate adaptation can be developed and implemented within the heritage sector to simultaneously reduce the impacts of changing climate and variability on tangible and intangible cultural heritage and provide co-benefits for climate change mitigation while also enhancing human security at different spatial scales. The CSCH is an integrated approach to implementing forward-looking and transformative cultural heritage management and policy and is not a new set of practices to be advocated to cultural heritage stakeholders and decision-makers. Findings also demonstrate that institutional mechanisms such as multi-stakeholder planning, increased awareness of the economic, social, and environmental benefits of diverse cultural heritage, improved cross-sectoral coordination and communication, strong political will for transformative approaches, and investments in CSCH are necessary for implementation of CSCH

LDE HERITAGE CONFERENCE on Heritage and the Sustainable Development Goals:

Heritage—natural and cultural, material and immaterial—plays a key role in the development of sustainable cities and communities. Goal 11, target 4, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasizes the relation between heritage and sustainability. The International LDE Heritage conference on Heritage and Sustainable Development Goals, which took place from 26 to 28 November 2019 at TU Delft in the Netherlands, examined the theories, methodologies, and practices of heritage and SDGs. It asked: How is heritage produced and defined? By whom and in what contexts? What are the conceptions of sustainability, and in what ways are these situational and contextual? How can theoretical findings on heritage and SDGs engage with heritage practice? The conference built on the multidisciplinary expertise of academics in the humanities, social, and spatial sciences, notably the interdisciplinary crossover research program, Design & History, the new theme of Heritage Futures at TU Delft, on active collaboration within the LDE Center for Global Heritage and Development (CGHD), and on heritage-related research conducted by the three partner universities Leiden, Delft and Erasmus in Rotterdam by further associated partners in the consortium and internationally. At TU Delft the research programs bring together different departments and disciplines: architecture, urbanism, history, landscape architecture, real estate and management, and engineering. They aim to further an interdisciplinary understanding of the transformation of the built environment and, through the consistent use of the past, to enable buildings, cities, and landscapes to become more sustainable, resource-efficient, resilient, safe, and inclusive. Researchers from Leiden University approach heritage from a broad variety of disciplinary perspectives, such as archaeology, museum studies, cultural anthropology, and area studies. Heritage research at Leiden University explores processes of heritage creation, and the appreciation and evaluation of material and immaterial heritage, to gain new insights into the cultural constitution of societies. Creating, acknowledging, and contesting heritage tends to be politically sensitive as it involves assertions and redefinitions of memory and identity. History and social studies scholars from Erasmus University in Rotterdam add further insights into heritage practice. This conference created a setting where academics and heritage practitioners could explore these questions from specific perspectives. It brought together 120 academics and practitioners keen to develop their understanding of and their input into heritage conservation, and to increase their contributions towards the development of sustainable cities and communities. The three-day conference combined a variety of formats. Participants engaged in nine academic sessions with peer-reviewed papers, eight roundtables on strategic goals, and six workshops spent applying specific methods and tools

Cultural Heritage and Climate Change: New challenges and perspectives for research

JPI Cultural Heritage & JPI ClimateCollaboration between the two Joint Programming Initiatives “Cultural Heritage and Global Change” (JPI CH), and “Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe” (JPI Climate) began in 2019 and led to the organisation of a joint workshop a year later. Following the recommendations in the workshop report, an expert working group was set up to scope research gaps and opportunities at the interface of cultural heritage and climate change, culminating in the publication of this White Paper. This strategic document is expected to support the two JPIs to generate policy-relevant research outcomes.Peer reviewe

Decolonizing climate change–heritage research

Climate change poses a threat to heritage globally. Decolonial approaches to climate change–heritage research and practice can begin to address systemic inequities, recognize the breadth of heritage and strengthen adaptation action globally.DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: The underlying dataset for Fig. 1a is available open access from the supplemental material in ref. 5, and datasets for Fig. 1b,c from the UNESCO World Heritage List 2021 in ref. 32.The UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada; the FLAIR Fellowship Programme: a partnership between the African Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society funded by the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund; the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments project funded by Arcadia — a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin; the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Training Scheme, hosted by Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.https://www.nature.com/nclimatehj2023Historical and Heritage Studie

Development Plan Strategies of Old Aleppo City and Sustainable Development Goals: Between Theory and Practice

The Old City of Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, has been inscribed on UNESCO{\textquoteright}s World Heritage List in 1986. In the early 1990s the Aleppo municipality initiated the project for the Rehabilitation of the Old City with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) as a partner. As part of the process, a Development Plan was issued as a general framework including ten strategies for upgrading the historical urban fabric in line with the sustainable development. Despite implementation of these strategies, the physical fabric of the Old City has continued to deteriorate, and the demographic transition has continued to increase until the escalation of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. The paper analyses the development plan{\textquoteright}s strategies in the Old City of Aleppo, mainly those related to housing aspects. It evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies based on the concept of good urban governance that intersects with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aiming to overcome the administrative gaps to rebuild the Old City more sustainably after the Syrian Civil War

Development Plan Strategies of Old Aleppo City and Sustainable Development Goals: Between Theory and Practice

The Old City of Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, has been inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 1986. In the early 1990s the Aleppo municipality initiated the project for the Rehabilitation of the Old City with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) as a partner. As part of the process, a Development Plan was issued as a general framework including ten strategies for upgrading the historical urban fabric in line with the sustainable development. Despite implementation of these strategies, the physical fabric of the Old City has continued to deteriorate, and the demographic transition has continued to increase until the escalation of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. The paper analyses the development plans strategies in the Old City of Aleppo, mainly those related to housing aspects. It evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies based on the concept of good urban governance that intersects with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aiming to overcome the administrative gaps to rebuild the Old City more sustainably after the Syrian Civil War