04/07/2025

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Most world heritage sites facing water-related threats

A LMOST three quarters of the globe’s cultural and natural heritage sites are threatened by too little or too much water, the UN’s cultural agency said on Tuesday. As a result of rising temperatures, extreme weather events including hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves have become more frequent and intense, scientists warned. About 73% of all 1,172 non marine sites on the Unesco Heritage List are exposed to at least one severe water risk – including water stress, drought, river flooding or coastal flooding, Unesco said. “Water stress is projected to intensify, most notably in regions such as 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. Cultural 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 monument in Agra, for example, “faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum,” the study said. In the US, “in 2022, a massive flood closed down all of Yellowstone National Park and cost over US$20 million (RM84.4 million) in infrastructure repairs to reopen.” The report gave four more examples. Iraq’s southern marshes – the o Climate change causing more frequent droughts, floods

The Taj Mahal faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both of which are damaging the mausoleum. – PEXELSPIC

extremely high risk of river flooding, Unesco said. In China, rising sea levels driven in large part by climate change are leading to coastal flooding, which destroys mudlands where migratory waterbirds find food, it added. – AFP

it was renamed by Scottish explorer David Livingstone – has faced recurring drought and is sometimes reduced to a trickle. In Peru, the pre-Colombian city of Chan Chan and its delicate 1,000-year-old adobe walls face an

where migratory birds live and inhabitants raise buffalo, as the region grows hotter in coming years. On the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Victoria Falls – originally called Mosi-oa-Tunya (”the smoke that thunders”) before

reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden – “face extremely high water stress, where over 80% of the renewable supply is withdrawn to meet human demand”, it added. And competition for water is expected to increase in the marshes,

One-of-kind museum where blind get to feel world’s wonders WITH their fingertips, Marina Rojas and Jose Pedro Gonzalez pored over a small-scale model of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia church in an exhibition which allows the blind to discover some of the world’s best-known monuments. “There is no other place in the world with a museum like this,” said guide Mireia Rodriguez, who is herself visually impaired. “There are many other museums designed for visually impaired visitors, but they do not have this kind of collection.” Rojas branded the exhibition “really marvellous”. Another room is filled with global landmarks such as the Taj Mahal, London Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Rome’s Colosseum, the Parthenon in Athens, the Eiffel Tower, the Kremlin and the Old City of Jerusalem to name but a few.

“There are just so many tiny details! And what a strange roof,” enthused Gonzalez as he explored the wooden replica of Gaudi’s spectacular basilica. Rojas said she “never imagined the Sagrada Familia like that”. “It is very surprising because you get a general idea of what the monument is like, what the space inside is like,” she added. The Madrid Typhlological Museum – from the Greek “ tuphlos ” meaning blind – houses 37 reproductions of global monuments that are listed as world heritage sites. It was set up in 1992 by ONCE, Spain’s powerful national organisation for the blind, which has 71,000 members. Made of wood, stone, metal or resin, the models are accessible to all visitors – whether blind, sighted or partially sighted – giving them a hands-on, sensory experience of the architecture.

ONCE runs a lottery and some very popular scratchcard games which bring in €2.5 billion (RM9.94 billion) a year and pays the salaries of its 72,000 employees, six out of 10 of whom have some sort of disability. The funds are also used for other investments, such as the museum, which in 2023 welcomed 16,000 visitors. Besides the models, the museum also features artworks by people who are visually impaired and a display of tools and equipment used from the early 19th century until the 1980s to help blind people access culture,

“No matter how much they explain to you, you cannot really get a proper image of what it is like... and that creates a lot of frustration, so the fact there are spaces such as this is fantastic,” said Rojas, whose eyes can only see a bit of light. “I wish there were more chances to touch such works of art,” the 32-year-old said. “Touch gives you a lot of information, even if most comes through sight, so it is very important to touch,” she said, her guide dog Boston standing at her side. For curious hands, however, he is firmly out of bounds. “Do not stroke me, I am working,” warned a message on his harness. Details like jewellery It was while feeling the dome of the Taj Mahal that Gonzalez’s hands lingered

Visually impaired Jose Pedro walks among models during a visit to the Typhlological Museum in Madrid. – AFPPIC

who has been blind since birth said. “I love these oriental domes and all the work that goes into carving the marble and the little details,” said Gonzalez, his hands gliding over the monument’s rooftops and facades. “It is, of course, a building and not a piece of gold jewellery, but in many respects, it seems like one,” he smiled. – AFP

longest, his fingers taking in the model’s smooth curves made of the very same Makrana marble as the dazzling white mausoleum in northern India. “I knew the Taj Mahal was made of marble, but the first thing that surprised me was touching it and how cold it felt, that the model itself was also made of marble,” the 60-year-old

including books in Braille. ‘Getting closer to culture’

After wandering through a room housing models of Spain’s best-known sights such as the Alhambra palace in Granada, Madrid’s Royal Palace and the Santiago de Compostela cathedral,