Urban Resilience and Heritage Management

Dear Colleagues,

The multiple dynamics that our cities, infrastructures, and territories are currently experiencing have an environmental, technological, and social base in constant transformation. The research framework is claimed to produce new indicators, tools, and methodologies for the purpose of implementing new policies.

In this sense, there is a more developed awareness of the risks our cities face, and the challenges set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These inputs force knowledge to ensure urban resilience as a component of growing and grant it inexcusable relevance.

For these reasons, cultural and natural heritage has become an indispensable factor of social cohesion for the achievement of more resilient cities, territories, and landscapes. The evolution of its management models with a clear social and environmental impact has been transformed into various demands for the scientific and research community.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to provide insights about the capacities of heritage to increase the resilience of our cities, territories, and landscapes, representing a wide field of possibilities, in particular, the search for balances between small and medium cities, with respect to large metropolitan areas. It is worth noting the patrimonial plurality of identity factors and cultural assets of a very varied type and entity. The combination of the traditional and permanent urban legacy, with new realities of urban growth and the assimilation by cities of extraordinary events, even of an ephemeral nature (Olympic Games, International Exhibitions), outline the diversity of urban contexts and their multifunctionality.

This richness can become an essential component to reduce the impact of and overcome land-related risks and threats that are complex to manage. Thus, those derived from climate change, depopulation in rural areas, or tourist pressure, among other issues, should be highlighted, particularly in historic centres and coastal areas. They affect especially significant assets that can become qualified actors in more resilient cities, territories, and landscapes.

The methodological advances produced in the processes of generating knowledge about heritage stand out for their innovative potential in their tangible and also intangible definition. Advances supporting using new technologies and in particular geomatics, GIS, and data management in an interdisciplinary framework that provides new keys to urban planning and heritage management are especially valued.

• Theoretical proposals for a renewed concept of resilience;
• New alliances in the management of cultural heritage and natural heritage to achieve the SDGs and improve the resilience of cities and communities;
• Initiatives that improve living conditions in urban and rural areas in the face of the deterioration of nature and the proliferation of natural disasters ;
• Historical urban and production landscapes: culture, heritage, and infrastructures as factors in favour of resilient territories;
• Cultural and natural heritage in the face of depopulation in rural areas, in search of a liveable and sustainable future;
• Contributions of traditional architecture to improving urban resilience;
• The interurban social imbalance and the qualified experiences of contemporary urbanism (garden cities, Athens Charter, CIAM) as heritage;
• The aptitude of modern urban forms to generate more resilient cities;
• Alternative uses and resistance of heritage to tourist pressure: sustainability versus touristification and gentrification in urban centres and coastal areas;
• Development of emerging cultural resources, heritage typologies, and renewal of cultural infrastructure (museums, visitor centres, and other cultural spaces) as tools for intercultural cohesion, inclusiveness, and better urban governance;
• The incorporation of territories resulting from large ephemeral events (Olympics, International Exhibitions, other singular events): adaptation capacities, urban renewal, and resilience;
• Challenges and opportunities for World Heritage Sites to guide universally shared practices in heritage management for a sustainable use of culture;
• The shared land: management of historical memories and controversial heritage as tools for the promotion of an inclusive and resilient citizenship;
• Stakeholders and actors from heritage towards a scenario of collaborative participation of agents in urban planning, land ordinance, and landscape design;
• Intelligent planning and management of the city and territory with the use of artificial intelligence, geomatics, GIS, and big data: analysis and monitoring of urban risks and vulnerability;
• The formation of a catalogue of good practises in terms of heritage management of more resilient cities: indicators, tools, and methodologies;
• The use of cost–benefit analysis to convenience judgment development procedures for enhancing urban resilience and heritage management;
• The ability to use methodologies and tools of a multicriteria nature to compare different urban intervention possibilities;
• The necessity of capturing the interests of several suitable stakeholders while designing urban and historic assets projects.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Maria Rosaria Guarini
Prof. Dr. Eduardo Mosquera-Adell
Prof. Dr. Clara Mosquera-Pérez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• cities recovery
• cultural property potentials
• good practices
• heritage stakeholders and actors
• heritage values and indicators
• information technologies and systems
• resilient cities and territories
• sustainable development goals
• urban planning and politics
• withstanding risks and vulnerability