Climate change, as revealed by gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and wind intensity, as well as sea level rise and changes in the occurrence of extreme events, is already affecting cultural heritage sites. Accordingly, there is a rapidly increasing body of research reporting on the impacts of climatic stressors on cultural heritage and on the assessment of climate change impacts on cultural heritage assets. This review synthesizes the international literature on climate change impacts on tangible cultural heritage by developing hazard‐impact diagrams focusing on the impacts of gradual changes in climate on: (1) the cultural heritage exposed to the outside environment, (2) the interiors of historical buildings and their collections, and (3) a third diagram associated with climate change and the impacts due to sudden changes in the natural physical environment (e.g., storm surges, floods and landslides, wildfire) in addition to sea level rise, permafrost thawing, desertification and changes in the properties of the oceans. These diagrams, which depict the relationships between various stressors and their impacts on cultural heritage, will allow other researchers, stakeholders, and potentially decision makers to determine the potential impacts of climate change on a specific cultural heritage asset without a separate examination of the literature. This review thus provides the current state‐of‐the‐art on the impacts of climate change on the tangible, built heritage, that is, monuments, archeological sites, historical buildings, as well as their interiors and the collections they hold, highlights the limitations of previous research, and provides recommendations for further studies. This article is categorized under: Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change

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Changes in rainfall patterns, humidity, and temperature, as well as greater exposure to severe weather events, has led to the need for adapting cultural heritage to climate change. However, there is limited research accomplished to date on the process of adaptation of cultural heritage to climate change. This paper examines the perceptions of experts involved in the management and preservation of cultural heritage on adaptation to climate change risks. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from the UK, Italy, and Norway as well as a participatory workshop with stakeholders. The results indicate that the majority of interviewees believe that adaptation of cultural heritage to climate change is possible. Opportunities for, barriers to, and requirements for adapting cultural heritage to climate change, as perceived by the interviewees, provided a better understanding of what needs to be provided and prioritized for adaptation to take place and in its strategic planning. Knowledge of management methodologies incorporating climate change impacts by the interviewees together with best practice examples in adapting cultural heritage to climate change are also reported. Finally, the interviewees identified the determinant factors for the implementation of climate change adaptation. This paper highlights the need for more research on this topic and the identification and dissemination of practical solutions and tools for the incorporation of climate change adaptation in the preservation and management of cultural heritage.

One of the most difficult problem facing those responsible for managing World Heritage Sites (WHS) is climate change, as it poses continuous new challenges to the conservation of cultural heritage. Moreover, as our climate continues to change our cultural heritage will potentially be exposed to diverse pressures and potentially to risks not previously experienced. Thus, management practices will need to be tailored in order to include climate change impacts. For climate change impacts to be incorporated into preservation frameworks and management practices from government policy level down to the practice in the field, data, information and assessment methods need to be available at a scale relevant to decisionmakers. This paper presents an integrated vulnerability assessment methodology and applies it to three UNESCO cultural WHS in Europe. Through this process, semi-structured interviews were conducted with academics and experts in the management and conservation of cultural heritage, as well as with the managers and coordinators of WHS. The incorporation of bottom-up knowledge in the assessment process allowed for an understanding of the sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the sites, two components of vulnerability that are not given sufficient attention and ignored, respectively, in typical topdown climate change impact assessments. In particular, the interviews elucidated the determinants that enable or constrain the capacity to adapt, i.e., resources, including technical, economic and human; information and awareness; management capacity; learning capacity; leadership; communication and collaboration; and governance; with the lack of resources most commonly mentioned as the determinant impeding adaptation. 'Information and awareness' and 'management capacity' are determinants that were not previously identified in the field of cultural heritage. The former stresses the need to disseminate the results of scientific research for their incorporation in the management of heritage sites. Vulnerability assessments such as those performed in this paper can be used to target interventions to protect and strengthen the resilience of cultural heritage to climate change impacts.

Climate change mitigation targets have put pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of cultural heritage buildings. Commonly adopted measures to decrease the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of historical buildings are targeted at improving their energy efficiency through insulating the building envelope, and upgrading their heating, cooling and lighting systems. However, there are complex issues that arise when mitigating climate change in the cultural built heritage sector. For instance, preserving the authenticity of heritage buildings, maintaining their traditional passive behaviours, and choosing adaptive solutions compatible with the characteristics of heritage materials to avoid an acceleration of decay processes. It is thus important to understand what the enablers, or the barriers, are to reduce the carbon footprint of cultural heritage buildings to meet climate change mitigation targets. This paper investigates how climate change mitigation is considered in the management and preservation of the built heritage through semi-structured interviews with cultural heritage experts from the UK, Italy and Norway. Best-practice approaches for the refurbishment of historical buildings with the aim of decreasing their energy consumption are presented, as perceived by the interviewees, as well as the identification of the enablers and barriers in mitigating climate change in the cultural built heritage sector. The findings emphasise that adapting the cultural built heritage to reduce GHG emissions is challenging, but possible if strong and concerted action involving research and government can be undertaken to overcome the barriers identified in this paper.