Richards, J;
Bailey, R;
Mayaud, J;
Viles, H;
Guo, Q;
Wang, X;
(2020)
Deterioration risk of dryland earthen heritage sites facing future climatic uncertainty.
Scientific Reports
, 10
, Article 16419. 10.1038/s41598-020-73456-8.
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Abstract
Uncertainties over future climatic conditions pose significant challenges when selecting appropriate conservation strategies for heritage sites. Choosing effective strategies is especially important for earthen heritage sites located in dryland regions, as many are experiencing rapid environmentally-driven deterioration. We use a newly developed cellular automaton model (ViSTA-HD), to evaluate the environmental deterioration risk, over a 100-year period, under a range of potential climate and conservation scenarios. Results show increased wind velocities could substantially increase the overall deterioration risk, implying the need for wind-reducing conservation strategies. In contrast, predicted increases in rainfall are not likely to increase the overall deterioration risk, despite greater risk of rain-driven deterioration features. Of the four conservation strategies tested in our model, deterioration risk under all climatic scenarios was best reduced by increasing the coverage of natural, randomly-distributed vegetation to 80%. We suggest this approach could be an appropriate long-term conservation strategy for other earthen sites in dryland regions.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Deterioration risk of dryland earthen heritage sites facing future climatic uncertainty |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-020-73456-8 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73456-8 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Climate and Earth system modelling, Climate-change impacts, Environmental impact |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10124129 |
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