Almost three-quarters of the world's cultural and natural heritage sites are under threat from drought or flooding as a result of global warming, the United Nations cultural agency said this week.
Seventy-three percent of all 1,172 non-marine sites on the Unesco Heritage List are exposed to at least one severe water risk, the Unesco study "Mountains and glaciers: Water towers" showed.
These risks include water stress, drought, river flooding and coastal flooding, as extreme weather events including hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves become more frequent and intense thanks to rising temperatures.
"Water stress is projected to intensify, most notably in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia and northern China, posing long-term risks to ecosystems, cultural heritage and the communities and tourism economies that depend on them," the report said.
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According to Unesco, cultural sites are most commonly threatened by water scarcity, while more than half of natural sites face the risk of flooding from a nearby river.
In India, the Taj Mahal monument in Agra "faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum". While in the United States, "in 2022 a massive flood closed down all of Yellowstone National Park and cost over $20 million in infrastructure repairs to reopen".
Iraq's southern marshes – the reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden – "face extremely high water stress, where over 80 percent of the renewable supply is withdrawn to meet human demand," the report added.
Competition for water is expected to increase in the marshes, where migratory birds live and locals raise buffalo, as the region grows hotter in coming years.
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On the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls has faced recurring drought and is sometimes reduced to a trickle.
In Peru, the pre-Colombian city of Chan Chan and its delicate 1,000-year-old adobe walls face an extremely high risk of river flooding, while in China, rising sea levels driven in large part by climate change are leading to coastal flooding, which destroys mudlands where migratory waterbirds find food.
(with AFP)
