Cultural heritage, climate change, intercultural dialogue and strategies for integrated conservation

Abstract

Retracing the relation between the city and water over the centuries, amidst floods, swamps, ports, reclaiming actions, aqueducts, consolidations, securing interventions, means gaining better knowledge of the cultural heritage during the last millennia and exploring the relation between man and water, in-depth. Scientific research helps us understand what the future developments may be; history, architecture and contemporary arts question us about the meaning of our relation with the cultural heritage and the environment we live in. The sea constitutes an opportunity and an immense source of wealth, but also a danger and a disruptive force, especially if pictured in the background of global pollution and climate change. There are 49 UNESCO sites on Mediterranean shores that, according to a recent study, could be submerged because of the rising of sea level due to global warming. New paradigms should tend, also for architectural and environmental properties, to zero ground consumption, to the inclusion of the built environment of historical interest into integrated conservation, the use of traditional and innovative technologies for knowledge and climate mitigation, compatible with cultural heritage. We are now called, in the light of greater awareness of environmental issues and possible solutions, to contribute to changes in relations with our one and only Planet, to reduce its level of climatic vulnerability and to build a new conservation ethic that should consider cultural values as a common and shared heritage and may welcome, for its protection and enhancement, the efforts of the community, favouring intercultural dialogue.