Adapting Cultural Heritage to Climate Change Risks: Perspectives of Cultural Heritage Experts in Europe

Changes in rainfall patterns, humidity, and temperature, as well as greater exposure to severe weather events, has led to the need for adapting cultural heritage to climate change. However, there is limited research accomplished to date on the process of adaptation of cultural heritage to climate change. This paper examines the perceptions of experts involved in the management and preservation of cultural heritage on adaptation to climate change risks. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from the UK, Italy, and Norway as well as a participatory workshop with stakeholders. The results indicate that the majority of interviewees believe that adaptation of cultural heritage to climate change is possible. Opportunities for, barriers to, and requirements for adapting cultural heritage to climate change, as perceived by the interviewees, provided a better understanding of what needs to be provided and prioritized for adaptation to take place and in its strategic planning. Knowledge of management methodologies incorporating climate change impacts by the interviewees together with best practice examples in adapting cultural heritage to climate change are also reported. Finally, the interviewees identified the determinant factors for the implementation of climate change adaptation. This paper highlights the need for more research on this topic and the identification and dissemination of practical solutions and tools for the incorporation of climate change adaptation in the preservation and management of cultural heritage.

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Climate change and water resources in the Lower Mekong River Basin: putting adaptation into the context

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2010.009 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 103-117 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

M. Keskinen ◽

S. Chinvanno ◽

M. Kummu ◽

P. Nuorteva ◽

A. Snidvongs ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Hydrological Cycle ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Mekong River ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Mekong River Basin ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales

Adaptation to climate change has become one of the focal points of current development discussion. This article summarises the findings from a multidisciplinary research project looking at climate change impacts and adaptation in the Mekong River Basin in Southeast Asia. The research highlights the central role that the hydrological cycle has in mediating climate change impacts on ecosystems and societies. The findings indicate that climate change should not be studied in isolation, as there are several other factors that are affecting the hydrological cycle. In the Mekong, the most important such factor is the on-going hydropower development that is likely to induce changes at least as radical as climate change, but with shorter timescales. The article concludes that climate change adaptation should broaden its view to consider environmental changes likely to occur due to different factors at various spatial and temporal scales. It is also important to recognise that climate change adaptation is a dynamic, development-orientated process that should consider also broader socio-political context. To enable this, we propose that an area-based adaptation approach should be used more actively to complement the dominant sector-based approaches.

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Farmers’ Perceived Vulnerability and Proactive versus Reactive Climate Change Adaptation in Chile’s Maule Region

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13179907 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (17) ◽

pp. 9907

Author(s):

Alejandra Engler ◽

Marieke L. Rotman ◽

P. Marijn Poortvliet

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Capital ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Farming Systems ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Structural Factors ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Perceived Vulnerability

Changes in climatic conditions are unavoidable and irreversible and an early and effective adaptation in farming systems will be vital for resilient agriculture. Although the extant literature has described factors that explain climate change adaptation, the roles of proactive versus reactive adaptation related to perceived vulnerability are still underexplored. The aim of our study was to open a new angle of discussion by linking farmers’ perceptions of vulnerability with their adaptation response, and exploring the dynamic of such a relationship. Semi-structured interviews with farmers were held in the Maule Region of central Chile (n = 36). The interview included questions o about main agricultural challenges, perceptions of climate change and its impact, adaptation strategies, and perceptions of vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity, and ability to adapt. In order to interpret the interview data, a content analysis procedure was followed. The results indicate that farmers respond differently by either engaging in proactive or reactive adaptation behavior. Furthermore, the patterns of either proactive or reactive adaptation behavior can be explained by structural factors and social and human capital. While structural factors, such as production systems and financial capital, explain engaging in adaptation to climate change, social and human capital act as enhancing factors that explain proactive adaptation. Future policies on adaptation behavior should focus on promoting proactive forms of adaptation behavior by developing and enhancing social connections and access to information, as well as on the provision of financial schemes to enable efficient and effective adaptation within the agricultural sector.

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Framing the challenge of climate change adaptation for Victorian local governments

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria ◽

10.1071/rs13016 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 125 (1) ◽

pp. 45

Author(s):

Hartmut Fünfgeld

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Local Government ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Local Governments ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Climatic Trends ◽

Government Sector ◽

Management Perspective ◽

Response Measures

Climate change adaptation, although dependent on our understanding of current and future climatic trends, is predominantly a social and institutional process. This becomes evident when studying how organisations actually respond to and prepare for climate change impacts. This paper explores the notion of framing climate change adaptation as a process of organisational development and change in the local government sector. Local governments, as the tier of government closest to the community, provide a raft of services to residents and businesses, many of which may be affected by the impacts of a changing climate. Local governments in Victoria and elsewhere have been at the forefront of assessing climatic risks and opportunities, as well as devising strategies and response measures to address these risks. The growing evidence of adaptation planning in the local government sector suggests that adaptation can be framed in many different ways, although a risk management perspective is frequently applied. Increasingly, adaptation to climate change is conceptualised as an ongoing, flexible process that needs to be fully embedded in the local and organisational context. This paper discusses the conceptual and organisational framing of climate change adaptation, illustrated by examples of the diversity of adaptation approaches taken by local governments in Victoria.

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Farmer flexibility concerning future rotation planning is affected by the framing of climate predictions.

10.31220/agrirxiv.2020.00025 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Miranda S. Bane ◽

Michael J. O. Pocock ◽

Caroline Gibert ◽

Matthieu Forster ◽

Geoffroy Oudoire ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Financial Stability ◽

Soil Health ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Environmental Benefits ◽

The South ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Economic Resilience ◽

Environmentally Sustainable ◽

The Uk

Abstract Arable crops are typically grown in annual rotations. Diverse rotations can support ecosystem services, provide economic resilience and support adaptation to climate change. Our aim was to assess farmers' attitudes to planning and diversifying crop rotations, focusing on their responses in the face of contrasting climate viewpoints. We interviewed 75 farmers from four regions along a latitudinal gradient from the south of the UK to the south of France. We used a semi-structured questionnaire with face-to-face interviews and asked farmers to respond to two narrative viewpoints of climate change impacts: one viewpoint focused on opportunities, the other on constraints. We found in all four regions that farmers' use rotations, and the crops within rotations, to achieve their main objectives of financial stability and improved soil health. Most farmers (79-100% depending on region) said they had experienced climate change, and many (54-83%) had already implemented changes in their farming practices. We did not find a difference in these results based on latitude. However, farmers' self-reported outlook was mostly optimistic in southern UK and become progressively more pessimistic further south. Overall, most farmers predicted that they would diversify and lengthen rotations in response to climate change. However, when presented with a viewpoint of climate change impacts focusing on opportunities, more farmers were likely to diversify and lengthen, and fewer were likely to shorten rotations, compared to a viewpoint presenting constraints from these impacts. Crucially, here we show that the presentation of climate change affects the ways in which farmers predict how they will respond to climate change. Diversified rotations would align with multiple other economic and environmental benefits. Therefore, it is essential to consider the way in which climate change impacts are communicated, and the effect on farmers' behavior, when designing measures to support environmentally-sustainable adaptation to climate change.

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Climate change impacts pest and beneficial insects over the last half century: Insights from the UK

10.1603/ice.2016.105031 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

James R. Bell

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Half Century ◽

Beneficial Insects ◽

The Uk

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Understanding institutional barriers in the climate change adaptation planning process of the city of Beirut: vicious cycles and opportunities

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change ◽

10.1007/s11027-021-09961-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 (6) ◽

Author(s):

Leonardo Zea-Reyes ◽

Veronica Olivotto ◽

Sylvia I. Bergh

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Planning Process ◽

Climate Adaptation ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Data Bank ◽

Institutional Barriers ◽

Political Interference ◽

Poor Individual ◽

Competing Priorities

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.

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Spatial-Planning-Based Ecosystem Adaptation (SPBEA): A Concept and Modeling of Prone Shoreline Retreat Areas

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10030176 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 176

Author(s):

Dewayany Sutrisno ◽

Mulyanto Darmawan ◽

Ati Rahadiati ◽

Muhammad Helmi ◽

Armaiki Yusmur ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Spatial Planning ◽

Best Practice ◽

Model Development ◽

Multicriteria Analysis ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Coastal Protection ◽

Adaptation To Climate Change ◽

Shoreline Retreat ◽

Tidal Waves ◽

Central Java

Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change impacts, such as shoreline retreat, has been promoted at the international, national, and even local levels. However, among scientists, opinions about how to implement it in spatial-planning practices are varied. Science-based environmental factors, human wellbeing, and sustainable development can be strengthened by developing spatial-planning-based ecosystem adaptations (SPBEAs). Therefore, this article aims to assess how the SPBEA model can be developed within an area prone to shoreline retreat. A coastal area of the Sayung subdistrict in Central Java, Indonesia, was selected as a study area because it has experienced a massive shoreline retreat. A multicriteria analysis (MCA) method was employed for developing the model by using the geographic information system (GIS) technique of analysis, divided into three steps: the fishpond zone determination, which involved the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method in the process of model development; the fishpond site determination; SPBEA fishpond site development. The results show that the SPBEA model is the best practice solution for combatting shoreline retreat because of tidal waves and/or sea-level rise. The spatial site management should empower the coastal protection zone and the sustainable fishpond zone by implementing a silvofishery approach.

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The Awareness of and Input into Cultural Heritage Preservation by Urban Planners and Other Municipal Actors in Light of Climate Change

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12060726 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 726

Author(s):

Paul Carroll ◽

Eeva Aarrevaara

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Cultural Heritage ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Town Planning ◽

Urban Setting ◽

Heritage Preservation ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

The Future ◽

Cultural Heritage Preservation

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.

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Attitude Changes of Stakeholders towards Climate Change Adaptation Policies in Agricultural Sector by Online Deliberation

Climate ◽

10.3390/cli9050075 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 75

Author(s):

Kenshi Baba ◽

Eri Amanuma ◽

Motoko Kosugi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Virtual Communities ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Online Deliberation ◽

Pros And Cons ◽

Adaptation Policies ◽

Attitude Changes

This study set up online virtual communities consisting of farmers and stakeholders involved in agriculture and nonfarmers living in rural areas interested in agricultural production. We conducted a deliberation within the communities for 14 days on identifying important climate change adaptation policies for 30 years later under climate change impacts with the relevant knowledge from experts. During the deliberation, after self-introduction took place including the realization of climate change impacts, the participants were provided with the expert knowledge on impacts of climate change, adaptation policies in agricultural sector and so on, then the following discussions covered issues such as the distribution of agricultural produce, insufficient successors, and support for farmers, such as impacts on crops during disasters concerning future scenarios. Attitude changes before and after deliberation were observed in terms of the pros and cons of climate change adaptation policies in agriculture and rural areas, but statistically significant differences were not observed. On the other hand, a statistically significant change was observed in some determinants of the pros and cons, such as the perceived effectiveness and goal intention. This structural change results from that the participants became aware of a different perspective through deliberation. Thus, the online deliberation process was effective to some extent in increasing knowledge and promoting deeper understanding among participants during inquiry and reasoning was deepened in the process as they listened to the opinions of others in a different position with a different idea as well as read and search for scientific findings and information provided by experts.

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