Climate Change Vulnerability of Cultural Landscapes and Intangible Heritage: An integrative voice-centred approach
Abstract:
Climate Vulnerability Assessments (CVAs) are commonly used to quantify the degree to which a system is susceptible to adverse climate change effects. Based on theoretical research of state-of-the-art CVAs, I designed my own CVA framework with the aim to integrate community voices and landscape-level perspectives. It innovatively researches the impacts and challenges climate change poses to biocultural intangible heritage practices and traditional landscape management at living cultural landscapes. My interdisciplinary research brings together documentary climate science research, global examples of long-term adaptation strategies, and quantitative and qualitative primary research documenting the
experiences of a vulnerable community. It is underpinned by a post-human research paradigm that interlinks nature, culture, the non-human, and the human within landscape assemblages.
Thus, I am in the process of applying my CVA framework to climatically similar case studies in rural, marginalised areas with traditional, biocultural heritage threatened by and exposed to rapid climate change. This case study methodology will consist of community interviews and observational landscape-level research that emphasizes key features in a vulnerable landscape of particular value to the local community. Following an iterative, community- integrated review process, I aim to produce a spatial GIS representation of climate vulnerability overlaid with the cultural geographies of intangible heritage and the landscape.
The goal of my research is to contribute to a holistic interpretation of the sites’ abilities to adjust to climate change.