The future of heritage as climates change: loss, adaptation and creativity

Climate change is a critical issue for heritage studies. Sites, objects and ways of life all are coming under threat, requiring alternative management, or requiring specific climate change adaptation. Heritage is key to interpreting the societal significance of climate change; notions (and images) of the past are crucial to our understanding of the present, and are used to prompt actions that help society define and achieve a specific and desired future.

Relatively little attention has been paid to the critical intersections between heritage and climate change. The Future of Heritage as Climates Changeframes the intellectual context within which heritage and climate change can be examined, presenting cases and sub-fields in which the heritage-climate change nexus is being examined and provides synthetic analyses through five overarching themes:

• The heritage of change among coastal communities: liminality and the politics of engagement
• Dwelling materials: processes and possibilities;
• Environmental heritage: meanings of the past - prospects for the future;
• Blurring the boundaries of nature and culture: the politics of anticipation;
• Climate change and heritage practice: adaptation and resilience.