Cultural Heritage and Water: Protecting Identity in a Changing Climate
Water is not just a resource—it is the essence of life, culture, human rights and identity. During World Water Week in Stockholm this August, we were able to organize a session on Cultural Heritage and Water, allowing experts and civil society voices to come together and explore how water management, cultural heritage, and human rights are interconnected, and how governance systems must adapt to protect both nature and culture in the face of climate change.
The session, Adapting Nature to Protect our Heritage was held on August 28th with a total of 71 people participating both online and in-person. The event was supported by the perspectives of Alejandro Iza (IUCN), Amanda Loeffen (HR2W), Eddy Moors (IHE Delft) and Professor Bradley Moggridge (University of Technology, Sydney). The event was facilitated by Maria Lindelien (IUCN).
Beyond Economic Value: Rethinking How We Value Water
Throughout the session, the speakers emphasized how societies often translate the value of water, food, and nature into purely economic terms. Yet, cultural and spiritual values, as well as mental health, are equally vital. As Professor Bradley Moggridge from Australia highlighted, cultural heritage is rarely prioritized in disaster planning or funding—even though extreme events cause immeasurable human and cultural loss.
Amanda Loeffen emphasised that cultural heritage should be a goal in itself, not just an afterthought of climate adaptation strategies, stressing also the importance of local engagement:
“We need a different way of thinking about long-term investments, ensuring that communities are actively involved so that solutions are sustainable.” – (Amanda Loeffen, HR2W)
Fragmented Governance and the Need for Rights-Based Approaches
However, achieving harmony between cultural heritage, nature and human rights is not an easy task. Alejandro Iza raised his concern on how there is fragmented governance: international conventions often fail to speak to heritage laws, and domestic laws mirror this division. Eddy Moors echoed the urgency of moving from talk to action. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and population growth all intersect, demanding new ways to weigh priorities and to push implementation across sectors, stating how there needs to be awareness that there are different types of benefits and that sometimes indirect benefits are equally valuable.
Indigenous Knowledge and Community Leadership
A central theme throughout the session was the link between cultural heritage and indigenous communities, given that these often carry deep knowledge of the local ecosystems and species, what thrives in the region. The active engagement of the audience was a testament of the interest and importance of this topic. Cristal, a participant from Colombia, talked about how projects that ignore cultural heritage may appear successful on paper but fail in practice. True resilience requires engaging communities through meaningful participation—not symbolic consultation.
Other participants echoed the importance of moving from consultation to consent, ensuring that communities are the ones to decide how to preserve their cultural heritage. Education was also mentioned as a powerful entry point, if water and indigenous perspectives are integrated into school curricula then there could be a strengthening of cultural values from early childhood.
Culture-Based Solutions for Climate Challenges
Throughout the discussion, the speakers proposed shifting from “nature-based solutions” alone to “culture-based solutions” – By cantering culture and heritage in project design, we not only protect identities but also restore ecosystems, safeguard species, and rebuild resilience.
“It’s not only about keeping what we have, it’s also about restoring what we have lost—and in some cases, about building anew.” – Eddy Moors
Looking Ahead: From Talk to Transformation
The webinar revealed that protecting cultural heritage requires bridging governance, valuing culture alongside economics, and ensuring communities lead decision-making. Aside from that, there needs to be a focus on prevention—anticipating loss and damage before disasters strike, rather than only seeking remedies afterward.
Maria stated the importance of flipping the narrative from monetary investments to cultural benefits could be the way forward. Cultural heritage must be embedded in project KPIs, policy frameworks, and global dialogues—from the UN Water Conference to COP climate negotiations.
Water connects us not only to ecosystems but to our identities, traditions, and sense of belonging. Protecting cultural heritage is not just about monuments or landscapes—it is about people, their histories, and their futures. To truly achieve resilience, we must embrace both rights-based and culture-based approaches, ensuring that water and heritage are safeguarded together for generations to come.
Watch the session:
Read more on the link between cultural heritage and water on these publications:
