journal article·2026-04-16Open access

National development pathways shape climate stress at cultural world heritage sites globally

Haiyang Cui, Zihua Chen, Zhenbo Wang, Yajing Wu, Jiaxin Li, Qian Gao

npj Heritage Science· Volume 14· Issue 1

Abstract

Climate change increasingly threatens cultural World Heritage sites globally, yet how national development pathways relate to changes in this stress remains unclear. Here we present the Global Heritage Adaptation Portfolio Framework (GHAPF), linking changes in climate-induced stress at 938 cultural World Heritage sites to multidomain national development patterns. Using a two-stage analysis that combines climate material exposure thresholds with interpretable machine learning on World Development Indicators from 1995–2020, we find that the modelled net association is skewed toward lower predicted stress by about one third. Health, social protection, labor participation, and governance are most consistently associated with lower predicted stress. Low- and middle-income countries show broader but smaller average contributions across domains, whereas high-income countries show larger average contributions concentrated in fewer domains. GHAPF is a transferable macro-scale screening framework that can inform national adaptation planning while complementing site-specific preventive conservation, especially where direct heritage investment is limited.
Source: openalex_inverted_index · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Conservation Techniques and Studies · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Archaeological Research and Protection

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

References (48)

Show source-provided references
1. Cassar, M. Climate change and world heritage, report on predicting and managing the impacts of climate change on world heritage, and strategy to assist States Parties to implement appropriate management responses. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2007).
2. ICOMOS Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Working Group. The Future of Our Pasts, engaging cultural heritage in climate action, outline of climate change and cultural heritage. International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) (2019).
3. Orr, S. A., Richards, J. & Fatoric, S. Climate change and cultural heritage, a systematic literature review (2016-2020). Hist. Environ. Policy Pract. 12, 434–477 (2021).10.1080/17567505.2021.1957264 ↗
4. Perry, J. & Falzon, C. Climate change adaptation for natural World Heritage sites, a practical guide. UNESCO (2014).
5. UNESCO. Policy document on climate action for World Heritage. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2023).
6. Chen, Z. et al. World Cultural Heritage sites are under climate stress and no emissions mitigation pathways can uniformly protect them. Commun. Earth Environ. 6, 628 (2025).10.1038/s43247-025-02603-8 ↗
7. Sesana, E., Gagnon, A. S., Ciantelli, C., Cassar, J. & Hughes, J. J. Climate change impacts on cultural heritage, a literature review. WIREs Clim. Change 12, e710 (2021).10.1002/wcc.710 ↗
8. Peters, G. P., Minx, J. C., Weber, C. L. & Edenhofer, O. Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 8903–8908 (2011).10.1073/pnas.1006388108 ↗
9. Liu, J. et al. Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science 317, 1513–1516 (2007).10.1126/science.1144004 ↗
10. Steffen, W. et al. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 8252–8259 (2018).10.1073/pnas.1810141115 ↗
11. Rockström, J. et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475 (2009).10.1038/461472a ↗
12. Chen, Z. H., Gao, Q., Li, X. W., Yang, X. H. & Wang, Z. B. Beyond inundation, a comprehensive assessment of sea level rise impact on coastal cultural heritage in China. Herit. Sci. 12, 121 (2024).10.1186/s40494-024-01233-1 ↗
13. Reimann, L., Vafeidis, A. T., Brown, S., Hinkel, J. & Tol, R. S. Mediterranean UNESCO World Heritage at risk from coastal flooding and erosion due to sea-level rise. Nat. Commun. 9, 4161 (2018).10.1038/s41467-018-06645-9 ↗
14. Vousdoukas, M. I. et al. African heritage sites threatened as sea-level rise accelerates. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 256–262 (2022).10.1038/s41558-022-01280-1 ↗
15. Falk, M. T. & Hagsten, E. Assessing different measures of fire risk for Cultural World Heritage Sites. Herit. Sci. 11, 15 (2023).10.1186/s40494-023-01026-y ↗
16. Corvo, F. et al. Influence of air pollution and humidity on limestone materials degradation in historical buildings located in cities under tropical coastal climates. Water Air Soil Pollut 205, 359–375 (2010).10.1007/s11270-009-0081-1 ↗
17. Hu, H. & Hewitt, R. J. Understanding climate risks to world cultural heritage, a systematic analysis and assessment framework for the case of Spain. Herit. Sci. 12, 194 (2024).10.1186/s40494-024-01299-x ↗
18. Liu, X., Koestler, R. J., Warscheid, T., Katayama, Y. & Gu, J.-D. Microbial deterioration and sustainable conservation of stone monuments and buildings. Nat. Sustain. 3, 991–1004 (2020).10.1038/s41893-020-00602-5 ↗
19. Bonazza, A., Sabbioni, C., Messina, P., Guaraldi, C. & De Nuntiis, P. Climate change impact, mapping thermal stress on Carrara marble in Europe. Sci. Total Environ. 407, 4506–4512 (2009).10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.04.008 ↗
20. Di Turo, F. et al. Impacts of air pollution on cultural heritage corrosion at European level, what has been achieved and what are the future scenarios. Environ. Pollut. 218, 586–594 (2016).10.1016/j.envpol.2016.07.042 ↗
21. Hu, H. Impact of climatic-meteorological conditions on Polish wooden cultural heritage, an example of World Heritage sites featuring wooden churches near Krakow. Humanit. Soc. Sci. Commun. 11, 1318 (2024).10.1057/s41599-024-03854-0 ↗
22. Frasca, F. et al. Assessing microclimate thresholds for heritage preventive conservation to achieve sustainable and energy efficiency goals in a changing climate. Sci. Rep. 14, 18707 (2024).10.1038/s41598-024-69395-3 ↗
23. Fatoric, S. & Seekamp, E. Are cultural heritage and resources threatened by climate change, a systematic literature review. Climatic Change 142, 227–254 (2017).10.1007/s10584-017-1929-9 ↗
24. Chen, Y. et al. World Heritage documents reveal persistent gaps between climate awareness and local action. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 1293–1299 (2025).10.1038/s41558-025-02461-4 ↗
25. Lin, B. B. et al. Holistic climate change adaptation for World Heritage. Nat. Sustain. 6, 1157–1165 (2023).10.1038/s41893-023-01153-1 ↗
26. Simpson, N. P. et al. Decolonizing climate change-heritage research. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 210–213 (2022).10.1038/s41558-022-01279-8 ↗
27. Chen, G. et al. Bibliometric analysis of spatial technology for World Heritage, application, trend and potential paths. Remote Sens 15, 4695 (2023).10.3390/rs15194695 ↗
28. Crowley, K. et al. Cultural heritage and risk assessments, gaps, challenges and future research directions for the inclusion of heritage within climate change adaptation and disaster management. Clim. Resil. Sustain. 1, e45 (2022).
29. Zhou, K. et al. Urban flood risk management needs nature-based solutions, a coupled social-ecological system perspective. npj Urban Sustain 4, 25 (2024).10.1038/s42949-024-00162-z ↗
30. IPCC. Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva (2023).
31. Seekamp, E. & Jo, E. Resilience and transformation of heritage sites to accommodate for loss and learning in a changing climate. Climatic Change 162, 41–55 (2020).10.1007/s10584-020-02812-4 ↗
32. Che, Y. et al. 3D-GloBFP, the first global three-dimensional building footprint dataset. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 16, 5357–5374 (2024).10.5194/essd-16-5357-2024 ↗
33. Shi, Q. et al. The last puzzle of global building footprints, mapping 280 million buildings in East Asia based on VHR images. J. Remote Sens. 4, 0138 (2024).10.34133/remotesensing.0138 ↗
34. Sesana, E., Gagnon, A. S., Bonazza, A. & Hughes, J. J. An integrated approach for assessing the vulnerability of World Heritage Sites to climate change impacts. J. Cult. Herit. 41, 211–224 (2020).10.1016/j.culher.2019.06.013 ↗
35. Sorrentino, B., Screpanti, A. & De Marco, A. Corrosion on cultural heritage buildings in Jordan in current situation and in future climate scenarios. Sci. Rep. 14, 25373 (2024).10.1038/s41598-024-77195-y ↗
36. Munoz Sabater, J. ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate Data Store https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac (2019).10.24381/cds.e2161bac ↗
37. World Bank. World Development Indicators. World Bank, Washington, DC (accessed 8 Nov 2025).
38. World Bank. World Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan 2021-2025, supporting green, resilient, and inclusive development. World Bank, Washington, DC (2021).
39. Veigel, N., Kreibich, H. & Cominola, A. Interpretable machine learning reveals potential to overcome reactive flood adaptation in the continental US. Earths Future 11, e2023EF003571 (2023).10.1029/2023EF003571 ↗
40. Pörtner, H.-O. et al. Climate Change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge (2022).
41. Chicco, D., Warrens, M. J. & Jurman, G. The coefficient of determination R-squared is more informative than SMAPE, MAE, MAPE, MSE and RMSE in regression analysis evaluation. PeerJ Comput. Sci. 7, e623 (2021).10.7717/peerj-cs.623 ↗
42. Licciardi, G. & Amirtahmasebi, R. The economics of uniqueness, investing in historic city cores and cultural heritage assets for sustainable development. World Bank (2012).10.1596/978-0-8213-9650-6 ↗
43. International Council on Monuments and Sites. Heritage, climate justice and equity, ICOMOS Working Group report 2022. ICOMOS, Paris (2022).
44. Bajracharya, M. Vulnerability of World Cultural Heritage Sites in developing Asian countries. npj Herit. Sci. 13, 60 (2025).10.1038/s40494-025-01579-0 ↗
45. Fatoric, S. & Daly, C. Towards a climate-smart cultural heritage management. WIREs Clim. Change 14, e855 (2023).10.1002/wcc.855 ↗
46. Fatoric, S. & Biesbroek, R. Adapting cultural heritage to climate change impacts in the Netherlands, barriers, interdependencies, and strategies for overcoming them. Climatic Change 162, 301–320 (2020).10.1007/s10584-020-02831-1 ↗
47. Hoornweg, D., Hosseini, M., Kennedy, C. & Behdadi, A. An urban approach to planetary boundaries. Ambio 45, 567–580 (2016).10.1007/s13280-016-0764-y ↗
48. Bai, X. et al. Translating Earth system boundaries for cities and businesses. Nat. Sustain. 7, 108–119 (2024).10.1038/s41893-023-01255-w ↗