Cultural Landscapes under the Threat of Climate Change: A Systematic Study of Barriers to Resilience

Cultural landscapes reflect a cultural group’s continuous and evolved interactions with natural resources and the environment. By now, climate change has become the most significant threat to cultural landscapes, e.g., food security, water scarcity, and displacement. The cultural and natural heritage of cultural landscapes can enhance their value as integrated systems and offer solutions to the challenges brought by climate change. Although exploring tangible impacts of climate change has received sufficient attention in cultural landscapes, a systematic understanding of the main barriers has been overlooked in building climate resilience in cultural landscapes. This paper aimed to explore the main barriers to building climate resilience in cultural landscapes. The research methodology was based on the content analysis of 359 documents published between 1995 and 2020. The results revealed that the integrated approach in documentation and assessments was the most quoted technical barrier. In addition, the lack of a regulatory framework for supporting effective collaboration and cooperation has been discussed as the most significant institutional obstacle to climate resilience in cultural landscapes.