Cultural Landscapes under the Threat of Climate Change: A Systematic Study of Barriers to Resilience

Gül Aktürk,Ahmadreza Shirvani Dastgerdi

doi:10.3390/su13179974

Gül Aktürk, Ahmadreza Shirvani Dastgerdi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179974

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Abstract

Cultural landscapes reflect a cultural group’s continuous and evolved interactions with natural resources and the environment. By now, climate change has become the most significant threat to cultural landscapes, e.g., food security, water scarcity, and displacement. The cultural and natural heritage of cultural landscapes can enhance their value as integrated systems and offer solutions to the challenges brought by climate change. Although exploring tangible impacts of climate change has received sufficient attention in cultural landscapes, a systematic understanding of the main barriers has been overlooked in building climate resilience in cultural landscapes. This paper aimed to explore the main barriers to building climate resilience in cultural landscapes. The research methodology was based on the content analysis of 359 documents published between 1995 and 2020. The results revealed that the integrated approach in documentation and assessments was the most quoted technical barrier. In addition, the lack of a regulatory framework for supporting effective collaboration and cooperation has been discussed as the most significant institutional obstacle to climate resilience in cultural landscapes.

Highlights

The concept of cultural landscapes exhibits the dynamic and interwoven relationship between society, environment, and culture [1]
The results showed that undertaking climate adaptation in cultural landscapes is interrupted by the most effective determinants of technical and institutional barriers with the least effective constraints of financial and socio-cultural barriers
The risks posed by climate change have emerged as a significant threat to the sustainability of these areas worldwide

Summary

Introduction

The concept of cultural landscapes exhibits the dynamic and interwoven relationship between society, environment, and culture [1] It covers a broad spectrum of interactions, synergies, and processes of multiple spatial and temporal scales and is an interdisciplinary term by nature [2]. Emphasizing the linkages of human society and nature, both concepts of cultural landscapes and social-ecological systems form a cultural ecosystem [6]. In this respect, the social-ecological systems concept engages with the notion of resilience more closely (with its characteristics of scale, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and self-organization or adaptability) in the way it deals with complexity and change [7,8]. Social-ecological system theories recognize nature and societies as inextricably interdependent, integrated, and nested systems, a view that we adopt to better understand cultural landscapes

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