Journal
JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Volume 18, Issue 2, Pages 251-283Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2021.1955778
Keywords
Spatial analysis; remote sensing; coastal; Middle East and North Africa
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Climate change poses a threat to coastal archaeology through sea-level rise, storm flooding, and coastal erosion. The Middle East and North Africa region lacks baseline evidence. A study on the climate change threat to MENA's coastal heritage reveals that the number of affected sites will continue to increase.
Climate change threatens coastal archaeology through storm flooding (extreme sea-level: ESL), long-term sea-level rise (SLR) and coastal erosion. Many regions, like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), lack key baseline evidence. We present initial results from a climate change threat assessment of MENA's coastal heritage using the Maritime Endangered Archaeology inventory: a geospatial database of MENA maritime archaeological sites incorporating a disturbance/ threat assessment. It informs two analyses of past disturbance and future threat: (1) using the integral threat/disturbance assessment, and (2) geospatial extraction of information from external coastal change models. Analysis suggests <5% of documented coastal sites are definitely affected by coastal erosion but up to 34% could also have experienced past flooding, erosion, or storm action. Climate change-related threats will increase over the 21st Century and accelerate post-2050 if carbon emissions remain high. SLR and ESL could impact 14-25% of sites by 2050 and 18-34% by 2100. Over 30% to 40% of sites could be impacted by erosion by 2050 and 2100 respectively. Whilst documentation is ongoing and there remain modeling uncertainties, this approach provides a means to redress the absence of baseline data on climate change threats to coastal cultural heritage in MENA .
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