Climate factsheets for world heritage sites in Norway

UNESCO has defined 1154 properties of world heritage, which all face an increased threat of degradation of their values due to climate change. Eight world heritage sitesare based in Norway (with one transboundary). As a response to this known threat, The Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway has started to assess the threat, and effect, of climate change on the sites and the communities around the sites by applying a method called CVI (https://cvi-heritage.org/) to the world heritage site on Vega archipelago. As part of this process, an assessment of the known climate changes affecting Vega was developed.

The Norwegian Ccentre for Climate Services has delivered two national assessments for Norway. Based on the later assessment, climate factsheets (Klimaprofiler) have been issued for every county, describing current conditions as well as the most important changes from the reference period to 2100. These fact sheets are tailored to meet the county and municipal needs of climate information for climate adaptation. The workshops regarding the climate vulnerability Vega archipelago demonstrated the need of a tailored interpretation of the fact sheet highlighting the threats affecting the world heritage sites. Whereas the county-wise climate change factsheets are developed to serve climate change adaptation needs related to design and planning, and therefore present results towards 2100, the world heritage sites preferred site specific information towards the middle of this century. During the winter and spring of 2022, a prototype for climate factsheets for the world heritage of Rock art in Alta was developed, and a first version presented at a workshop on Vega in april 2022. Based on the response of this presentation, similar factsheets will be co-produced for each of the eight world heritage properties in Norway. These factsheets are meant as a supplement to the county-wise factsheets, not a replacement. The comments provided in the process will inspire the next generation of county-wise factsheets which are planned to be issued by the Norwegian Centre of Climate Services in 2025.