ID: 1618
Presenting Author: Shixin Zhao
Session: 606 - Climate change impact assessments for cultural heritage: bridging informational gaps
Status: pending
This research quantifies the human contribution to heat, rain, and dry-spell extremes at World Heritage Sites, and translates the evidence into guidance for impact assessment and adaptation.
World Heritage Sites (WHSs) are obligated to sustain their Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs), which necessitates impact and risk assessment to guide their management. Human-induced climate change is changing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events at WHSs, threatening their integrity, authenticity, and community well-being. However, the extent to which these changes are attributable to human activities is unclear, and interpreting climate metrics into decision-ready evidence remains challenging. The emerging attribution science offers a scientific foundation that rapidly quantifies the anthropogenic effects on extreme weather events and heritage specific impacts, yet its application to cultural heritage remains nascent. Here we conduct a global attribution study, using large-ensemble simulations with natural-only forcings to isolate the human contribution to three climate extremes—extreme heat days, heavy rainfall, and consecutive dry spells—for every WHS inscribed with cultural value. On average, human influence has increased extreme heat days at WHSs by 46 days per year. Dry spells strengthened in WHS-dense Mediterranean regions, while changes in heavy rainfall are smaller and highly regional. Sites in low-income countries show the largest anthropogenic impacts of heat extremes, compared with mostly low-to-moderate shares in high-income regions. We show how attribution results can bridge information gaps for heritage practitioners, and how to develop communication tools that link attribution evidence to adaptation measures.
Shixin is a PhD candidate at UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage. He explores the role of attribution science in understanding the climate change risks for cultural heritage.
Coauthor 1: An Liu
Coauthor 2: Scott Orr
Coauthor 3: Chris Brierley