Cultural Heritage: A Help or a Hindrance?

It is becoming ever clearer that cultural heritage is not only threatened by climate change but also represents a resource for climate adaptation. Artificial levees were created as early as in Ancient Egypt, and drainage systems from Mycenaean times are still in use today. In the North Sea area, the construction of water management infrastructure began around 1000 CE, although varied strategies for coping with recurring flooding were developed even earlier. For centuries, for example, settlements were only built on naturally high ground or on artificial mounds, and space was kept free to make room for floodwater. These scant examples of infrastructure and strategies illustrate structures, techniques, and practices that have now been integrated into a comprehensive paradigm for mitigating flood risks in the twenty-first century.

In the new study “Using Cultural Heritage in Climate Adaptation: Fields of Application and Functions”, RIFS researcher Teresa Erbach draws on cases like these to categorise the contributions made by cultural heritage across multiple fields of climate adaptation. The beneficial functions performed by cultural heritage can be informational, social, economic, or aesthetic. The relevance of the individual functions varies across the different fields.

Fields of climate adaptation action and functions of cultural heritage in each field:

• The category of the engineered and built environment includes major infrastructure projects like flood levees and seawalls as well as small structures like floating houses. Integrating cultural heritage into adaptation action in this field can have an informational function when the examination of historic buildings and infrastructure yields knowledge about climate-adaptive construction. When taking cultural heritage into account during the shaping of landscapes makes coping with the loss of familiar surroundings or with change easier, this heritage fulfils an emotional function. Reusing historic structures like canals also performs economic functions. Finally, aesthetic functions come into play when processes of transforming landscapes are enhanced by the integration of cultural heritage.
• The category of technological and ecosystem-based options includes varied adaptation actions in the sphere of agriculture, new hazard monitoring technologies, and ecosystem-based approaches like protecting coastal infrastructure with mangroves and salt marshes. In this field, too, all four functions are active. Cultural heritage has informational benefits, for instance when indigenous knowledge supports climate-adaptive land management. Social and emotional benefits can result from endeavours like employing or reviving agricultural practices in ways that consider their cultural components and can foster cultural identity and social cohesion. Cultural heritage can yield economic benefits when, say, traditional techniques allow income to be created by means of agriculture or tourism. Finally, aesthetic factors can be of relevance when such practices heighten the cultural or sensory attractiveness of a landscape.
• The adaptation field of behavioural options encompasses steps in which humans adapt to change rather than seeking to adapt their environment. This can include emergency preparation measures at the household level, efforts to diversify livelihoods, migration, and developing resilient social communities. This involves three functions of cultural heritage: It can work in informational ways when it supports tasks such as the process of ascertaining the needs and priorities of population groups affected by relocation planning in a holistic and culturally sensitive manner. Emotional functions come into play when cultural practices are used to support the emotional processing of loss or change. Cultural resources can yield economic benefits, for example when cultural resources like traditional crafts provide people who have been resettled with a source of income.
• The adaptation category of education includes varied forms of learning about handling the risks and changes that result from climate change. Cultural heritage performs two functions in this field: It can be used informationally, as when traditional songs communicate rules for mitigating the risks of natural hazards. It also has an emotional dimension, for example in innovative approaches that lean on cultural heritage as a resource for coping with loss and with change.
• The field of informational strategies mainly encompasses early warning systems to detect environmental threats. Examples of relevant adaptation actions in this category include systematic monitoring and vulnerability mapping. Up to now, the main function of cultural heritage in this field has been informational. Analysing processes of climate adaptation in the past, sometimes even thousands of years ago, has yielded knowledge about both current adaptation challenges and the prerequisites for success.

Different approaches towards integrating cultural heritage into climate adaptation processes ultimately coexist side by side. One strand of thinking is concerned with preserving cultural heritage in its various forms, be it in connection with traditional techniques or drawing on existing cultural practices to strengthen the resilience of communities. Other scholars stress the importance of embracing new and creative approaches to deal proactively with change and the loss of cultural heritage.

The North–South gap

Differences in the examples from the Global North and the Global South also merit attention. The importance of integrating cultural heritage into the planning of climate protective infrastructure is only being discussed in northern Europe, for example. Calls for aesthetic and emotional aspects to be factored into the creation of such infrastructure seem to be audible only in high-income countries. At the same time, forms of adaptation that require behavioural change at the individual level seem to be discussed mainly for low-income countries.

Climate adaptation as a political challenge

There is no universal answer to the question of whether cultural heritage is a resource for enhancing climate preparedness or a stumbling block. In each and every case, the answer depends on values, varying perceptions of climate adaptation, and cultural and moral considerations. 

“Climate adaptation is closely linked to the question of what is worth preserving. And the issue of what cultural and technological tools are reasonable and should be deployed. As this also involves questions of resources distribution and social inequality that are both reflected in adaptation strategies and reinforced by them, climate adaptation strategies must be negotiated within a society”, notes Teresa Erbach.

The crossover area between cultural heritage and climate adaptation thus highlights not only the cultural but also the political dimension of climate adaptation.

Publication:
Teresa Erbach: Using Cultural Heritage in Climate Adaptation: Fields of Application and Functions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews - Climate Change, 16(4). doi:10.1002/wcc.70011.