Assessment of Sustainable World Heritage Areas in Saudi Arabia Based on Climate Change Impacts on Vulnerability Using RS and GIS

Abstract

Heritage is considered a pillar of civilized cultural identity and an important income resource. Climate change is one of the main threats to cultural heritage as fragile buildings are highly vulnerable to its impacts, as a result, many world heritage sites, unfortunately, have been lost. This study used Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop risk maps that determine spatial environmental changes regarding climatic parameters. The study used satellite images to analyze changes over 20 years for three climatic factors: temperature, humidity, and precipitation patterns. The average rate of change for each indicator was developed by comparing each month over 20 years. Three sub-models classifying changes for the selected factors were created, while the climatology model integrated the three sub-models with equal weights to assess the most vulnerable World Heritage sites. The vulnerable sites were classified into five categories, from less risk to the riskier. The study showed that most of Saudi’s Heritage sites are in the moderate-risk area. The study achieved the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11 and SDG 13. This paper supports decision-makers to preserve heritage sustainably and to create proactive plans for it.

Bibliometric Analysis of Spatial Technology for World Heritage: Application, Trend and Potential Paths

“…GIS and Remote Sensing are the first and second most popular. The trend of applying GIS and remote sensing technologies to WHs is obvious [81]. RS provides a rich source of spatial information for WHs, and the reflective properties of features in multiple wavelengths, such as visible, near-infrared and laser, provide a fine portrayal of the different spatial hierarchy, soils, topography, etc.…”

“…In addition, UAV platforms can be paired with high spatial resolution cameras and multispectral sensors to facilitate high-resolution mapping for WHs in real time and with high efficiency [85][86][87][88]. GIS can integrate multiple data sources, such as remote sensing images and practical expeditions to build accurate digital world heritage datasets for long-term monitoring and real-time updates of heritage sites [81,[89][90][91][92][93]. In addition, GIS can be used for the planning and design of world heritage sites and natural resource conservation and is an important tool for the sustainable development of heritage sites.…”