Assessment of Sustainable World Heritage Areas in Saudi Arabia Based on Climate Change Impacts on Vulnerability Using RS and GIS

Abstract

Heritage is considered a pillar of civilized cultural identity and an important income resource. Climate change is one of the main threats to cultural heritage as fragile buildings are highly vulnerable to its impacts, as a result, many world heritage sites, unfortunately, have been lost. This study used Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop risk maps that determine spatial environmental changes regarding climatic parameters. The study used satellite images to analyze changes over 20 years for three climatic factors: temperature, humidity, and precipitation patterns. The average rate of change for each indicator was developed by comparing each month over 20 years. Three sub-models classifying changes for the selected factors were created, while the climatology model integrated the three sub-models with equal weights to assess the most vulnerable World Heritage sites. The vulnerable sites were classified into five categories, from less risk to the riskier. The study showed that most of Saudi’s Heritage sites are in the moderate-risk area. The study achieved the sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 11 and SDG 13. This paper supports decision-makers to preserve heritage sustainably and to create proactive plans for it.