scholarly journals A society ill-equipped to deal with the effects of climate change on cultural heritage and landscape: A qualitative assessment of planning practices in transport infrastructure

Author(s):  
Hans ANTONSON ◽  
Philip Buckland ◽  
Roger Nyqvist

Abstract This paper provides insights into the handling of climate change issues related to cultural heritage at different government decision levels dealing with physical planning, and in particular roads. Data are derived from a qualitative analysis of official reports and interviews with local and regional planners in three Swedish regions with contrasting climates. The theoretical lens of Institutional Interplay is applied to an analysis grouped into six themes: Climate threats to cultural heritage; Adaptation measures; Preparedness; Institutional preconditions; Institutional interplay, and Challenges. The results suggest that despite a strong environmental reputation internationally, Sweden is not particularly well prepared for dealing with future climate change impacts on cultural heritage and landscape. The lack of national standards and standardized methods risks regional and sectoral variation in the treatment of similar tasks; a problem which deficiencies in knowledge and continuing education are perpetuating. The degree to which discussions and cooperation occurs between divisions within the same authority, between authorities, and in national networks, varies considerably. Routines and criteria for prioritization of cultural heritage mitigation, essential under conditions of limited resources, have yet to have been implemented. We conclude with five recommendations for improving the planning process with respect to climate change risks to cultural heritage.

2021 ◽  
Vol 166 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Antonson ◽  
Philip Buckland ◽  
Roger Nyqvist

AbstractThis paper provides insights into the handling of climate change issues related to cultural heritage at different government decision levels dealing with physical planning, and in particular roads. Data are derived from a qualitative analysis of official reports and interviews with local and regional planners in three Swedish regions with contrasting climates. The theoretical lens of Institutional Interplay is applied to an analysis grouped into six themes: Climate threats to cultural heritage, Adaptation measures, Preparedness, Institutional preconditions, Institutional interplay, and Challenges. The results suggest that despite a strong environmental reputation internationally, Sweden is not particularly well prepared for dealing with future climate change impacts on cultural heritage and landscape. The lack of national standards and standardised methods risks regional and sectoral variation in the treatment of similar tasks, a problem which deficiencies in knowledge and continuing education are perpetuating. The degree to which discussions and cooperation occur between divisions within the same authority, between authorities, and in national networks varies considerably. Routines and criteria for prioritisation of cultural heritage mitigation, essential under conditions of limited resources, have yet to have been implemented. We conclude with five recommendations for improving the planning process with respect to climate change risks to cultural heritage.


2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 1336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Cesano ◽  
Emilio Lèbre La Rovere ◽  
Martin Obermaier ◽  
Thais Corral ◽  
Laise Santos da Silva ◽  
...  

Este artigo descreve a experiência da coalizão Adapta Sertão na experimentação e disseminação de sistemas produtivos que possam tornar o agricultor familiar do Semiárido mais resiliente aos impactos da variação climática atual e da mudança do clima no futuro. Durante as experimentações, a coalizão teve que enfrentar várias barreiras ligadas à falta de integração entre políticas públicas existentes e projetos pilotos em comunidades locais. Hoje, a adaptação à mudança do clima não está sendo considerada na implementação de obras hídricas de pequeno e médio porte, que são de grande importância porque, geralmente, conseguem beneficiar as faixas de população mais pobres e mais suscetíveis aos impactos climáticos. As experiências mostram que é preciso desenvolver, com urgência, políticas públicas inovadoras que consigam integrar o acesso à água com a disseminação de tecnologias de adaptação e de sistemas produtivos mais resilientes à seca.  Palavras - chave: medidas de adaptação, agricultura familiar, semiárido, tecnologia.  The experience of the Adapta Sertão Coalition in Disseminating Climate Change Adaptation Technologies and Strategies for Family Farmers in Semi Arid Brazil  ABSTRACTThis paper describes the experience of the Adapta Sertão coalition in testing and experimenting production systems that have the potential to make small farmers of semi-arid Brazil more resilient to current and future climate change impacts. During the different testing, the coalition had to overcome several barriers linked to a lack of integration between current public policies. For example, today climate change is not considered in the design and implementation of small and medium hydraulic infrastructures. This limits the benefits to the target groups (small farmers) that are more likely to be affected by climate change. The experiences show that it is urgent and necessary to develop public policies to better integrate access to water, dissemination of climate resilient technologies and implementation of production systems more adequate to the semi arid conditions.  Keywords: adaptation measures, family farming, semi-arid, technology.


2017 ◽  
Vol 04 (04) ◽  
pp. 1850003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Greiving ◽  
Sophie Arens ◽  
Dennis Becker ◽  
Mark Fleischhauer ◽  
Florian Hurth

Any adaptation activity needs a reliable evidence basis for the climate itself as well as for the exposition and sensitivity of the social, economic or ecological system and its elements. This requires an assessment of recent climate impacts as well as potential future climate change impacts in order to select tailor-made adaptation measures. For a methodologically coherent assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had introduced the requirement of a parallel modeling approach which means that demographic and socioeconomic changes are projected in parallel to the changes of the climatic system. This paper discusses a conceptual framework of a parallel modeling approach and presents its application in four case studies of climate change impact assessments in Germany, covering the national, regional and local scale. The results from the different applications prove the hypothesis that the change in sensitivity (i.e., demographic change, economic change and change in land-use patterns) often determines the magnitude of climate- and weather-related impacts in the near future significantly. The case studies, however, also show that adaptation processes have to be organized in a collaborative way, which takes the knowledge, and also the concerns of the addressees into full account. A broad mandate from all social groups is especially needed when political decisions are based on uncertain knowledge — which is the case whenever climate change impacts are assessed.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Hans Antonson ◽  
Philip Buckland ◽  
Göran Blomqvist

There is no doubt that anthropogenic global warming is accelerating damage to cultural heritage. Adaptation measures are required to reduce the loss of sites, monuments and remains. However, little research has been directed towards understanding potential impacts of climate adaptation measures in other governmental sectors on cultural heritage. We provide a case study demonstrating that winter road salt, used to reduce ice related accidents, damages historical iron milestones. As the climate warms, road salt use will move north into areas where sites have been protected by contiguous winter snow cover. This will expose Artic/sub-Arctic cultural heritage, including Viking graves and Sami sites, to a new anthropogenic source of damage. Research and planning should therefore include the evaluation of secondary impacts when choosing climate adaptation strategies.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2379
Author(s):  
Sourour Ayed ◽  
Saida Mlouhi ◽  
Imen Bouhaouel

In recent years, there has been an urgent need for local strategies to ensure food sustainability in Tunisia, recognized as a climate change hotspot region. In this context, adaptation measures, including the adoption of high-yielding durum wheat cultivars with adequate agronomical practices, are an important avenue to improving the productivity of the smallholders that represent 80% of Tunisian farmers. Thus, this study highlights the impact of (i) the adoption of the recently marketed durum wheat cultivar ‘Salim’ as compared to the common cultivar ‘Karim’ and the transfer of a technical package to 11 farmers in the Nebeur delegation/Kef-Tunisia (semi-arid region) during the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 cropping seasons, and (ii) climate change on the expected mean grain yield and biomass by 2070, using the CropSyst agronomic cultivation model based on multi-year crop simulations run with a daily weather series (2020–2070). The adoption of ‘Salim’ with the recommended package, compared to ‘Karim’ with the farmer practices, significantly increased the grain yield (37.84%) and biomass (55.43%). Otherwise, the impact of the 0.8 °C temperature rise on the potential yields and biomass over the next 51 years was positive. Contrary to expectations, the yield increases for the two cultivars were very close, but the yield of ‘Salim’ (36.02 q ha−1) remains much higher than that of ‘Karim’ (23.34 q ha−1). On other hand, ‘Salim’ experienced a higher increase for biomass compared to that of ‘Karim’. These results indicate that the adoption of the ‘Salim’ cultivar with its technical package might be considered as a strategy of adaptation to Nebeur conditions and to future climate change events.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethune Carmichael

Australian rangelands are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage sites and Indigenous rangers increasingly manage them. It is well documented that climate-change adaptation planning on a local scale benefits from a stakeholder-led or bottom-up process. However, to date, few bottom-up, practical adaptation pathways exist for Indigenous Australians. This paper describes the development of a planning tool that supports Indigenous rangers’ plan for climate-change impacts on cultural heritage sites. To date, a limited number of methodologies for managing climate-change impacts on heritage sites have been developed internationally. Importantly these are not geared to a bottom-up planning process. By contrast, many generic adaptation decision-support tools exist that support bottom-up planning. These tools commonly begin with a scoping phase. The scoping phase of a tool that supports Indigenous rangers manage climate-change impacts on heritage sites is described. A validation model, consisting of central assumptions behind each element of the scoping phase, is then set out. Future testing in the field would involve assessment of the tool through confirmation or otherwise of these assumptions. The first two assumptions in the validation model are then addressed: that Indigenous rangers perceive climate-change impacts on heritage sites and that planning for them is a priority need. Previous literature has not addressed these questions in detail. Only if positive responses are gained for these foundational assumptions can future testing of the tool be justified. Results from preliminary fieldwork undertaken in northern Australia found Indigenous rangers in two out of three case studies perceive impacts on heritage sites, and regard addressing these impacts as a priority.


Author(s):  
Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽  
Veronica Olivotto ◽  
Sylvia I. Bergh

AbstractCities around the world are confronted with the need to put in place climate adaptation policies to protect citizens and properties from climate change impacts. This article applies components of the framework developed by Moser and Ekström (2010) onto empirical qualitative data to diagnose institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in the Municipality of Beirut, Lebanon. Our approach reveals the presence of two vicious cycles influencing each other. In the first cycle, the root cause barrier is major political interference generating competing priorities and poor individual interest in climate change. A second vicious cycle is derived from feedbacks caused by the first and leading to the absence of a dedicated department where sector specific climate risk information is gathered and shared with other departments, limited knowledge and scientific understanding, as well as a distorted framing or vision, where climate change is considered unrelated to other issues and is to be dealt with at higher levels of government. The article also highlights the need to analyze interlinkages between barriers in order to suggest how to overcome them. The most common way to overcome barriers according to interviewees is through national and international support followed by the creation of a data bank. These opportunities could be explored by national and international policy-makers to break the deadlock in Beirut.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 726
Author(s):  
Paul Carroll ◽  
Eeva Aarrevaara

Future climate conditions need to be considered in planning for urban areas. As well as considering how new structures would best endure in the future, it is important to take into account factors that contribute to the degradation of cultural heritage buildings in the urban setting. Climate change can cause an increase in structural degradation. In this paper, a review of both what these factors are and how they are addressed by urban planners is presented. A series of inquiries into the topic was carried out on town planning personnel and those involved in cultural heritage preservation in several towns and cities in Finland and in a small number of other European countries. The target group members were asked about observed climate change impacts on cultural heritage, about present steps being taken to protect urban cultural heritage, and also their views were obtained on how climate change impacts will be emphasised in the future in this regard. The results of the inquiry demonstrate that climate change is still considered only in a limited way in urban planning, and more interaction between different bodies, both planning and heritage authorities, as well as current research on climate change impacts, is needed in the field.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Leclerc ◽  
Franck Courchamp ◽  
Céline Bellard

Abstract Despite their high vulnerability, insular ecosystems have been largely ignored in climate change assessments, and when they are investigated, studies tend to focus on exposure to threats instead of vulnerability. The present study examines climate change vulnerability of islands, focusing on endemic mammals and by 2050 (RCPs 6.0 and 8.5), using trait-based and quantitative-vulnerability frameworks that take into account exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Our results suggest that all islands and archipelagos show a certain level of vulnerability to future climate change, that is typically more important in Pacific Ocean ones. Among the drivers of vulnerability to climate change, exposure was rarely the main one and did not explain the pattern of vulnerability. In addition, endemic mammals with long generation lengths and high dietary specializations are predicted to be the most vulnerable to climate change. Our findings highlight the importance of exploring islands vulnerability to identify the highest climate change impacts and to avoid the extinction of unique biodiversity.


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