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This paper aims to study possible differences between the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) defined in the designation of Cuenca as a World Heritage (WH) site and its inhabitants' perceptions of heritage value. The study is based on research conducted in the historic centre of Cuenca in Ecuador, which was accorded WH status in 1999.

The research employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, providing a complementary approach to the research subject. Quantitative research involved a probability survey of 400 informants randomly selected from the population of the canton of Cuenca, while qualitative research included 40 semi-structured interviews with residents and traders in the historic centre and 150 further written consultations with residents of the city.

Following the introduction, methodology and description, the paper presents the data gathered from the survey and interviews. These indicate inhabitants' perceptions of the meaning, values, and uses of WH in Cuenca and reveal differences between their perceptions and those of the official OUV.

Although there are several studies on WH residents' perceptions of UNESCO OUV, few highlight the mismatch between local community views of heritage and those established by UNESCO. This study reflects critically on the concept of OUV, which is based on technical and political criteria rather than social participation. The study employs methodologies that could be applied in other case studies and used to improve heritage management. This is the only study on local perceptions of Cuenca's OUV.

This paper introduces a methodology to identify, analyse and represent heritage site attributes, emphasizing their impact on value, authenticity, integrity and management, with a case study on Ghadames, Libya. Inscribed in 1986 and moved to the In-Danger List in 2016 due to conflict, this work seeks to update the site's attributes and values for improved management.

This methodology, focusing on Ghadames, leverages recent heritage management advancements to monitor conflict-induced changes, aiming to enhance decision-making through a detailed analysis of the site's natural and cultural attributes.

Our findings highlight the need for systematic and holistic assessments of heritage site attributes and values, crucial for managing sites of both local and global significance. This approach is a key to understanding their identity, guiding interpretation, management and preserving cultural significance.

Developed for Ghadames, the methodology requires adaptation for other sites, underscoring the importance of identifying core tangible and intangible attributes that define a site's uniqueness.

Our developed methodology offers a replicable framework that can be modified by local heritage professionals to map attributes and assess the direct and indirect impact of conflict on heritage sites.

The detailed assessment provides a foundation for crafting informed policies and effective management strategies. It specifically targets minimizing the adverse effects of conflict on heritage sites' attributes. This effort is instrumental in preparing the necessary documentation to support the delisting of these sites from the UNESCO World Heritage Site In-Danger List, promoting their preservation and recovery.

This article aims to raising awareness on the potential of the application of the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) methodology – developed by ICOMOS in 2011 – with a focus on UNESCO World Heritage sites that are characterized by a widespread presence of vernacular architecture, one of the most vulnerable and fragile typologies of heritage.

Starting from a theoretical introduction about the recognition of vernacular heritage into the international non-governmental panorama, and the dynamics that are mostly affecting it, the present contribution focuses on the case study of the Chora of Patmos (Greece), a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999. The research has been carried out as follows: (1) comparative analysis of selected literature for the theoretical part; (2) field research; (3) interdisciplinary research for understanding the features of the site and assessing potential risks; (4) project design and assessments of the potential impacts.

The pivotal application of the HIA method on the case study of Patmos highlighted the importance of the methodology as an essential tool for facilitating management and safeguarding WH sites from possible threats due to development projects on vernacular architecture.

The originality of the research presented here lies in the connection between three different topics: vernacular architecture, Heritage Impact Assessment and Sustainable World Heritage Management. In fact, its goal is to bring cultural heritage management and sustainable development closer together, by emphasizing that HIA should not be used as a tool to hinder development, but as a practice for shaping and evaluating projects that might alter or compromise the integrity and authenticity of WH sites in a sustainable and balanced way.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of beneficial externality generated by the World Heritage List (WHL) on residential property values in order to offer new insights into heritage discourses.

The study uses the hedonic price model to estimate empirically the difference in prices for residential properties located in the Old Rauma World Heritage. The study uses residential sales transaction data from the City of Rauma from January 2005 to September 2012 drawn from an online database called KVKL Hintaseurantapalvelu managed by the Central Federation of Finnish Real Estate Agencies.

The research results indicate a positive, but insignificant, relationship between the property sale prices (euros/sqm) and heritage designation. However, the total sale prices are higher in Old Rauma as the properties are significantly larger in Old Rauma compared to other properties in Rauma.

Studies in heritage economics have assessed the influence of the property market on heritage listing and designation at either the national level, the local level or a mix of national/local levels. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the impact of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) world heritage designation on residential property values. UNESCO is the leading global institution which deals with the protection of heritage sites that transcend national and local boundaries.

The sixth of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has access to improved sanitation as one of its targets. Sanitation is important not only for environmental quality and public health but also for the outstanding universal value (OUV) of heritage monument sites and tourism promotion. The study examined the causes of open defecation (OD) in the neighbourhood of a World Heritage (WH) site in Ghana and the implications of the practice for sustainable tourism and heritage management.

The study used the qualitative approach. Data were gathered from purposively targeted respondents (an Environmental Health Officer, Heritage Managers, a Tourism Expert, Hoteliers, Zoomlion Staff, Open Defecators, Community Opinion Leaders and Ordinary Community Residents) and analysed using the thematic approach.

It became evident that the causes of OD were: the lack of toilet facilities in many houses in the community, filthy and foul-smelling public latrines, poor attitude and heritage culture, mental and income poverty, inadequate sensitisation and a poor law enforcement regime. OD threatened the sustainability of heritage tourism and its associated livelihoods, as well as public health. In addition, it impaired the authenticity and integrity of the heritage monument, culminating in a detraction from the OUV of the heritage property.

In collaboration with the local, national and international stakeholders, the managers of the heritage monument should design and implement a comprehensive environmentally friendly plan. The plan should consider demarcating the boundaries of the heritage asset, monitoring the protected area, enforcing sanitation laws and mounting intensive sanitation education campaigns. It should also consider providing a decent toilet in the vicinity of the monument for the transit population, facilitate the provision of a toilet in every house through the community-led total sanitation approach, installing digital cameras at vantage points in the buffer zone of the castle to capture open defecators and punishing offenders severely to deter others from engaging in the ignoble practice of OD.

The authors argue that sanitation at heritage sites in developing countries merits further discussion within the WH network to promote sustainable heritage conservation management and tourism.

The World Heritage Convention has reached a milestone, and this year, in 2022, it is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The aim of this article is to review whether and how the goals of the strategic action plan (SAP) for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (2012–2022) have been reached.

This article starts by considering the outcomes for three of the SAP goals, dealing with protection and management; the credibility of the World Heritage List and sustainable development, using additional information from the final implementation report of the SAP (UNESCO, 2021a), which provides key performance indicators and the implementation status for each goal and associated outcomes. This article then compares and contrasts available data, trends and examples to provide more in-depth analyses of the implementation of the three goals. Data have been gathered from my own research and from the work of other academics and practitioners.

The article finds several key positive changes, including the recent revisions of the Operational Guidelines to include provisions from the 2015 UNESCO Policy on World Heritage and Sustainable Development. However, a number of concerning or worsening trends relating to the protection and management of the World Heritage List, its increasing lack of credibility and sustainable development make it difficult to conclude that the implementation of the goals has been positive. The article concludes with suggestions for addressing these issues.

This paper fills a gap, as not much has yet been published on the state of implementation of the Convention at 50 years old.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated multi-risk identification procedure for World Cultural Heritage (WCH) sites exposed to seismic events, while considering characteristics of disasters from earthquakes in a multi-hazard context on one side and particular aspects of WCH (e.g. outstanding universal values and associated condition of authenticity and integrity) on the other.

An interdisciplinary review of current relevant approaches, methods, and practices is conducted through the existing literature of disaster risk management, heritage conservation, and seismology. Furthermore, a document analysis of concrete cases affected by seismic events supports concepts and the procedure.

This paper results in a methodology of identifying multi-risk of disasters induced by earthquakes. A bow-tie analysis diagram in combination with a risk identification matrix is developed for illustrating a multiple emergency scenario in identifying possible impacts of earthquakes’ primary effects, secondary hazards, and human-threats on tangible and intangible attributes of cultural properties.

The research aims to provide specialists and practitioners from multiple sectors engaged in pre-disaster risk mitigation and preparedness plan for cultural heritage with a practical risk identification tool. The proposed method, in a multiple hazard context, intends to enhance risk assessment procedure for determining more appropriate risk reduction strategies in the decision-making process.

This paper, through emphasising “earthquake disaster risk” rather than “earthquake risk”, illuminates the significance of quake-followed secondary hazards, potential human-induced hazards and human errors in the risk identification process, due to the fact that while a disaster may begin with a quake, its full scope might be triggered by a combination of the mentioned potential threats.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the emergence of the concept of outstanding universal value and its application from the ancient to modern times culminating with its codification under the auspices of UNESCO in 1972.

The nearly four decades‐long application of UNESCO's World Heritage Convention offers a solid basis for a critical reflection regarding past achievements and future challenges. An entire review of this being beyond the scope of a single paper, it focuses on only a few salient issues which illustrate how this unique international legal instrument evolved in the past 39 years.

The paper singles out for each of the four stages at least one emblematic and most threatened World Heritage property, in order to illustrate major legal issues and how these were addressed by the parties.

As Secretary of the World Heritage Committee as well as Founder Director of the World Heritage Centre viewpoints the author presents that constitute a direct and continuous observation of World Heritage related matters over the last four decades.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of documentation and recording techniques for World Heritage conservation using the case studies of the Petra Archeological Park (PAP) in Jordan and the Silk Roads Cultural Heritage Information System (CHRIS) in Central Asia. In the PAP case study, these techniques could aid in the assessment of risks faced by World Heritage properties and threats to the integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values (OUV). With respect to the Silk Roads CHRIS case study the Geospatial Content Management System (Geo‐CMS) proposed aims to improve information management and collaboration among all stakeholders.

Integrated surveying techniques and information management systems together with active stakeholder participation can be used as conservation and management tools. In the case of PAP, using a systematic documentation tool (MEGA‐J) to conduct site condition and risk assessment of cultural heritage and combining photographs, maps and GPS measurements within a GIS platform allows for identifying the location and intensity of risks, and the degree of vulnerability within the PAP boundaries and buffer zone. In the Silk Roads CHRIS project the Geo‐CMS brings together data from different fields, e.g. geography, geology, history, conservation, to allow for a holistic approach towards documentation, protection and management of a number of diverse sites to be combined in serial transnational World Heritage.

The study provides insight into how digital technologies can aid in heritage documentation and conservation, including stakeholder involvement and training. Moreover, by means of the two case studies it can be shown that a combination of digital technologies allows for an efficient mapping of buffer zones and risks and how a Geo‐CMS can form a common platform to manage large quantities of information of different origin and make it accessible to stakeholders in transnational projects.

This paper discusses the use of digital technology and the participation of stakeholders in heritage conservation and documentation when dealing with complex World Heritage properties, e.g. serial transnational and archaeological ensembles at high risk.

The paper describes how expert views were elicited in developing a conceptual framework of conserving cultural values of heritage buildings (CVHB) from the facilities management perspective (fm). It proposes the manifestation of fm perspective of people, place, process, and technology as a tool to sustain the physical condition and integrity of a HB and its CV according to fm dimension before a HB is endorsed as a heritage. The linkages between fm and CVHB will help to produce a guideline for conserving CVHB from fm perspective (CVHBfm) at the initial phase of conservation in Malaysia. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study opted for an exploratory approach; three expert interviews were conducted from three levels of conservation practitioners drawn from strategic, tactical, and operational levels. A matrix thematic was used to manifest the qualitative variables in mapping the conceptual framework. The respondents will provide views and linkages between eight criteria of CVHB (social, economic, political, historic, aesthetical, scientific, age, and ecological) and fm dimension (people, place, process, and technology) in conserving a HB at the preliminary phase of conservation. The responses from these respondents will provide insights into how fm perspective manifest and epistemological construct with CVHB variables that will be integrated in a case study method for further investigation inquiry.

In this paper, the study indicates an fm perspective of people, place, process, and technology, associates and epistemological constructed with CVHB criteria of social, historic, aesthetical, and scientific in sustaining the physical condition and integrity of CVHB from fm dimension in Malaysia. The respondents from three levels of conservation practitioners (strategic, tactical, and operational) have explained and elaborated briefly the connotation between CVHB and fm in mapping the framework. It also provides insights into how fm dimension manifests with those CVHB variables in conserving a HB before it is endorsed as a heritage at the initial stage of conservation.

Moving from this exploratory study, further research will be undertaken. In-depth interviews will be carried out with a rigorous emphasis on fm and eight criteria of CVHB with a greater number of experts on HB conservation from strategic, tactical, and operational levels in Malaysia. Documents suggested during the initial study such as The National Heritage Act 2005 (Malaysia) and UNESCO's outstanding universal values (OUV) will be analysed and framed in mapping the conceptual framework. Further investigation will assist Malaysia in advancing the application of fm perspective to enhance the conservation of HB and its CV by highlighting the role of fm as a robust tool in sustaining the integrity HB in Malaysia.