Integrated understanding of climate change and disaster risk for building resilience of cultural heritage sites

Abstract

Heritage assets are vulnerable to climate change and disaster risks. However, existing literature has long been separating climate change from disaster risks, which were mainly considered as natural disasters. Recently, the framework of integrated understanding of climate change and disaster risk reduction in international policies started to be discussed in sustainable development discussion, while mentioning opportunities to build resilience of cultural heritage sites (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2020). But this framework is yet to be implemented and detailed in the context of heritage sites. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze how the integrated understanding of climate change and disaster risk reduction policies can contribute to building climate resilience of cultural heritage sites by reviewing the key themes emerging from the literature. The question this paper answers are how can the integrated understanding of climate change and disaster risks reduction tackle barriers to the resilience of heritage sites? And what can be done to fill the gaps identified in the literature? To understand it, four elements from the literature are analyzed, including methodological contributions, temporalities, challenges and gaps, and opportunities. The findings of this review help in understanding the gap and interplay between science and policy in decision-making processes. We conclude by discussing the ways forward for the applicability of the framework in building resilience of cultural heritage sites.