The role of natural and mixed cultural-natural heritage in increasing the resilience of socio-ecological systems to climate change impacts

Agendas to reduce the risks associated with climate change and increase resilience to impacts have become rather inclusive in the types of social effects that they consider, also acknowledging their embeddedness in socioecological networks, geographies, and scales. Heritage, as many other semantically rich social and cultural notions, is both under-represented and under-specified in climate change policy assessments. It is therefore important, beyond merely recognising the importance of heritage, to keep sketching out how this importance looks like in practice and how it can connect to policy assessment. In this paper and accompanying talk, we overview our ongoing research work to clarify two complementary aspects: the benefits of heritage within the exposure and vulnerability structure of seven living socioecological systems; and the monetary added value of UNESCO inscription in eurozone’s regional economies.