How Can Climate Change Affect the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites in Panama?

Abstract

This work investigates the impact of long-term climate change on heritage sites in Latin America, focusing on two important sites in the Panamanian isthmus included in the World Heritage List: the monumental site of Panamá Viejo (16th century) and the Fortresses of Portobelo and San Lorenzo (17th to 18th centuries). First of all, in order to support the conservation and valorisation of these sites, a characterisation of the main construction materials utilized in the building masonries was performed together with an analysis of the meteoclimatic conditions in their vicinity as provided by monitoring stations recording near-surface air temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall amounts. Secondly, the same climate variables were analysed in the historical and future simulations of a state-of-the-art global climate model, EC-Earth, run at high horizontal resolution, and then used with damage functions to make projections of deterioration phenomena on the Panamanian heritage sites. In particular, we performed an evaluation of the possible surface recession, biomass accumulation, and deterioration due to salt crystallisation cycles on these sites in the future (by midcentury, 2039–2068) compared to the recent past (1979–2008), considering a future scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions.

An integrated approach for assessing the vulnerability of World Heritage Sites to climate change impacts

“…A top-down approach was also used to determine the impacts of climate change in specific case studies through the development of local risk maps (HES, 2018;Ciantelli et al, 2018;Mendénez et al, 2018). Historic Environment Scotland (HES) (2018) conducted a risk assessment to identify cultural heritage sites at risk from climate change.…”

“…Their assessment consisted of a GIS based analysis of the risks of flooding, slope instability and coastal erosion on the properties they manage. Ciantelli et al (2018) depicted the impacts of different deterioration phenomena under climate change on two cultural WHS in Latin America. Mendénez et al (2018) estimated the variation of salt weathering under climate change affecting built cultural heritage in specific locations in France.…”

Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Resources Threatened by Climate Change

“…The SI encompass 10 open access papers presenting research studies based on the exploitation of a broad range of data deriving from preventive conservation monitoring [5][6][7] and climate or numerical modelling on material components for assessing environmental impact and climate change effects [8,9]. These papers are focused on a well-assorted sample of decay phenomena occurring on heritage materials, e.g., surface recession and biomass accumulation on limestone [10], depositions of pollutant on marble [11], salt weathering on inorganic building materials [12], and the weathering process on mortars [13]. Finally, one paper [14] is devoted to examining the perceptions of experts involved in the management of cultural heritage on adaptation to climate change risks.…”

“…With a specific look at surface recession and biomass accumulation on limestone as a long-term climate change effect, Ciantelli et al [10] present a case study in Latin America, in Panamá Viejo (a 16 th -century building) and at the Fortresses in Portobelo and San Lorenzo (17th-to 18th-centuries). The authors first analyzed the main construction materials at the site level (i.e., masonries and limestone), adopting several investigation techniques (e.g., stereomicroscope, polarized light microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, environmental scanning electron microscopy, ion chromatography), and then they analyzed changes in rainfall, RH, and surface air T as key drivers of the deterioration of cultural heritage.…”

“…Correspondingly, with a combination of methods described in [10,11,13], i.e., material analysis, damage function application, and climate change scenarios, Menéndez [12] estimates the salt weathering induced by climate change on built cultural heritage in 41 locations in France. In the analysis of phase-change phenomena, the author uses not only the two most common salts held responsible for decay, i.e., sodium chloride and sodium sulfate, but also others like calcium sulfate or mixtures of chlorides, sulfates, and nitrates of sodium, calcium, magnesium, and potassium.…”