Most world heritage sites, including Taj Mahal, exposed to water risks: Unesco

Almost three-quarters of the cultural and natural heritage sites in the world are threatened by too little or too much water, the UN’s cultural agency, Unesco, said on Tuesday. As many as 73% of all 1,172 non-marine UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including those in India, are exposed to at least one severe water risk, with 21% of them facing the dual problems of having too much water one year and too little during another, shows a new analysis based on the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct data (also called the water risk atlas).
As per the analysis, heritage sites experiencing severe risks in India include the Taj Mahal, Kaziranga National Park, Western Ghats, Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram, and the Great Living Chola Temples.

“Water stress is projected to intensify, most notably in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia, and northern China—posing long-term risks to ecosystems, cultural heritage, and the communities and tourism economies that depend on them,” it added.

Extreme weather events like hurricanes, droughts, floods, and heatwaves have become more frequent and intense as a result of rising temperatures.

Taj Mahal faces water scarcity, says report

The sites were most commonly threatened by water scarcity, while more than half of natural sites faced the risk of flooding from a nearby river, the Unesco study showed.

In India, the Taj Mahal in Agra, for example, “faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum,” it said.

In the United States, a massive flood closed down all of Yellowstone National Park in 2022 and cost over $20 million in infrastructure repairs to reopen.

Iraq’s southern marshes, the reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, “face extremely high water stress and competition for water is expected to increase in the marshes, where migratory birds live and inhabitants raise buffalo, as the region grows hotter in coming years.

In China, rising sea levels are leading to coastal flooding, which destroys mudlands where migratory waterbirds find food, it added.

The combined pressures of infrastructure development and climate change pose a significant threat to both natural ecosystems and the cultural heritage they sustain, the analysis said.