The EU R&I Task Force for Climate Neutral and Resilient Historic Areas

Climate change poses a significant and alarming threat to cultural and natural heritage in urban and rural areas, jeopardizing the preservation of tangible and intangible aspects of our shared human history, including cultural traditions, knowledge, and practices. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and increased temperatures contribute to the degradation of cultural sites. Coastal regions face the imminent danger of inundation and erosion, endangering landscapes that have withstood centuries. At the same time, Indigenous communities are vulnerable, as their cultural heritage is often intricately connected to specific ecosystems and landscapes. On top of these climatic threats, cultural and natural heritage is also threatened by impacts from anthropogenic stresses, like unsustainable tourism and consumption patterns or environmental pollution.

Against this backdrop the H2020 projects ARCH, HYPERION, and SHELTER founded the EU R&I Task Force for Climate Neutral and Resilient Historic Urban Districts in 2021. The task force aims to bring together diverse groups of practitioners, researchers, and policy makers at the cross section of heritage management, climate change adaptation / mitigation, disaster risk management, and sustainable development. This coincides with the objective to identify and discuss current developments in research and practice; bridge knowledge gaps between these fields; boost collaboration among the cross-sectoral actors involved; and ultimately make our historic areas more climate neutral and resilient. In doing so, the task force aims to provide practical support to European authorities and decision makers for developing harmonised, evidence-based policies, strategies, and procedures. The Task Force has thus far convened three times: June and December 2021, and June 2022, and resulted in a joint white paper, Paving the Way for Climate Neutral and Resilient Historic Districts.

With the successful conclusion of the three funding projects, the work of organizing the task force has been taken over by their follow-up projects RescueME, THETIDA, and TRIQUETRA in 2023, shifting the focus from urban districts to historic areas, encapsulating cultural and natural heritage in urban and rural areas and other cultural landscapes, including coastal and underwater heritage.

In this presentation, we present the last results of the task force, the way forward regarding its development and activities within the updated partnership, and potential collaboration opportunities with other initiatives, projects, and actors.