Climate Change Threats to UNESCO-Designated World Heritage Sites: Empirical Evidence from Konso Cultural Landscape, Ethiopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would acknowledge the work of the authors on this interesting and timely manuscript. Indeed studies on the African region around climate change and heritage, including the intangible, are few. However, I feel the quality of the presentation of the manuscript, the methods, and some of the findings need to be significant revised to be publishable.

 

ABSTRACT

Are the codenames for the climate indicators necessary in the abstract (e.g., TX10p)? For me, they are not useful in this context but rather only in the body of the paper.

 

Line 61: it is not clear to me how the degree to which these landscapes are vulnerable depends on hazards -> this is a conflation of risk determinants. I recommend you align your terminology with IPCC understanding of hazard, vulnerability, exposure, and response.

 

Line 66: this needs a citation, was climate change really cited explicitly as a reason for listing it in danger?

 

Methods: a section on the data collection from interviews, discussants, focus groups, etc. is required here.

 

Line 121: is it necessary to say 'approximately' and then include 2 decimal places of a km^2? about 2500 sq km should suffice.

 

Line 142: presumably 'a.s.l' means above sea level, but this should be spelled out in full the first time it is used?

 

Line 195: in which way are the wet seasons bimodal? Bimodality is the characteristic of a distribution. Is it the intensity of wetting events, or some other parameter of rainfall? Or is it simply meant that they occur at two distinct times in the year?

 

Figure 2: this is not an effective colour palette for sequential binned data. Rather, the intensity should be changed consistently (i.e. from light to dark), perhaps even in grayscale or with a colour overlay. This applies for all figures hereafter as well.

 

Figure 4: should use some sort of divergent colour palette, splitting at 0 (i.e. two different hues on either side, with changing intensity the greater the absolute values diverge from 0).

 

Figure 6: it is not clear what the units are being shown. 'Trends' -> is this percentage change from a baseline? Are they absolute value changes? Could statistical significance be included visually in the figures, i.e. colour change is darker (more saturated) if significant, but fainter if not? Or not shown if not significant?

 

Lines 254-272: where is this data/information from? It is not clear how it has been collected and should be presented more clearly as quotations from experts/interviews etc. Line 277 mentions 'an interview', was it just one?

 

Lines 282-284: I do not understand this sentence. Is it the environment affecting the social cohesion or the opposite, or both are influencing each other? Again, where is the evidence for this? This claim is unfounded.

 

Lines 364-365: This is unfounded. Where is the evidence/citation?

 

Lines 409-417: This is unfounded. Where is the evidence/citation?

 

Table 2: climate is typically characterised on 30-year timescales, or at least 10 years. Linear trends of this kind are not suitable representations of changing climate. IT would be statistically more robust to use periods of time (e.g. 10 years) and undertake inferential statistical tests of whether they are significantly different, e.g. t-tests or chi-squared tests etc.

 

Lines 536: This seems like a point where a 'Discussion' section might begin?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

General: a thorough grammatical editorial review should be done, e.g. line 43 should be "the occurrence of extreme weather events has become..."

 

Line 18: P should be lowercase (p-value, not P-value)

 

Line 25: is 'terrifying' the correct word here? it is a bit odd in this context.

 

Line 26: transmission, not transition?

Line 122: remove extra space?

Line 172: could subscripts be used to denote variations of variables, e.g. T_{max}, with max as a subscript

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

 

General comments

I would acknowledge the work of the authors on this interesting and timely manuscript. Indeed studies on the African region around climate change and heritage, including the intangible, are few. However, I feel the quality of the presentation of the manuscript, the methods, and some of the findings need to be significant revised to be publishable.

 Response: Thank you for the comments and values given in our manuscript. Based on the comments given, we take time and improve the quality of the manuscript by revising the methods and findings. We highlighted the revised statements and words in yellow in the revised manuscript.

Q1 (on Abstract): Are the codenames for the climate indicators necessary in the abstract (e.g., TX10p)? For me, they are not useful in this context but rather only in the body of the paper.

Response: Thank you for the comment. We removed the code names of extreme events used in the abstract section.

Q2: Line 61: it is not clear to me how the degree to which these landscapes are vulnerable depends on hazards -> this is a conflation of risk determinants. I recommend you align your terminology with IPCC understanding of hazard, vulnerability, exposure, and response.

Response: The extensive terracing constructed across the entire landscape in the study area is one of the elements used for the registration of Konso as a UNESCO-designated cultural landscape. These landscapes are damaged as a result of extreme events (flooding). On the other side, getting long grasses for house making is becoming a common challenge due to the recent extended drought years. As a result, the community is forced to change their traditional houses covered by grass to modern houses covered with corrugated iron sheets. These traditional houses are one of the criteria for the inscription of Konso as UNESCO world heritage. The walled villages with traditional houses are now transformed into modern houses, which has changed the cultural landscape. Therefore, the vulnerability of the landscape in Konso depends on the degree of extreme events. A detailed analysis of the extent of vulnerability of the landscape will be done using statistical measurements in the forthcoming paper.

Q3. Line 66: this needs a citation, was climate change really cited explicitly as a reason for listing it in danger?

Response: Climate change is explicitly mentioned as a reason for listing the UNESCO world heritage site of Ifugaos Rice Terraces in the Philippines in danger from 2001–2012. It is clearly shown on page 9 in the works of Nguyen and Baker (2023). We added this citation to the manuscript.

Q4: Methods: a section on the data collection from interviews, discussants, focus groups, etc. is required here.

Response: Interviews and focus group discussions as data collection tools are mentioned under the section ‘type and source of data’. We also added information about their analysis on lines 200-202 in the revised version.

Q5: Line 121: is it necessary to say 'approximately' and then include 2 decimal places of a km^2? about 2500 sq km should suffice.

 Response:  Thank you very much for your comment. We deleted about from the statement. Actually, its area is automatically calculated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Q6: Line 142: presumably 'a.s.l' means above sea level, but this should be spelled out in full the first time it is used?

Response: Thank you again. We included the words in full ‘above sea level’ in the revised manuscript.

Q7: Line 195: in which way are the wet seasons bimodal? Bimodality is the characteristic of a distribution. Is it the intensity of wetting events, or some other parameter of rainfall? Or is it simply meant that they occur at two distinct times in the year?

 Response:  Yes, bimodality is a characteristic of a distribution. We mean that from the annual rainfall cycle (distribution) in the study area, Konso gets rainfall mainly in two distinct seasons (the main wet season, Katana which begins in mid-February and ends in May, and the second wet season - Hageya, which begins in September and ends in November).

Q8: Figure 2: this is not an effective colour palette for sequential binned data. Rather, the intensity should be changed consistently (i.e. from light to dark), perhaps even in grayscale or with a colour overlay. This applies for all figures hereafter as well.

 Response: Thank you for your comment. We did the analysis using the Climate Data Tool software, and the software has choices of colors for various events (rainfall, drought, heat, topography). Therefore, we selected the appropriate color from the options in the drop-down box in the CDT tool box and revised all figures accordingly.

Q9: Figure 4: should use some sort of divergent colour palette, splitting at 0 (i.e. two different hues on either side, with changing intensity the greater the absolute values diverge from 0).

 Response:  Thank you for your critical comment. I think the colors we used diverged from 0 on either side. To the left, they are showing aridity, while to the right, they are indicating wetness. Yes, the intensity becomes greater when it diverts more from 0 on both sides.

Q10; Figure 6: it is not clear what the units are being shown. 'Trends' -> is this percentage change from a baseline? Are they absolute value changes? Could statistical significance be included visually in the figures, i.e. colour change is darker (more saturated) if significant, but fainter if not? Or not shown if not significant?

 Response:  Thank you again for your critical comment here. Actually, the units of each extreme precipitation event are described in Table 1, line 88. With regard to their significance level, the CDT package does not visually indicate the significance level of extreme events on the map. It shows the trend, including its magnitude and p-value, in a graph when we click on any point on the map. We provided descriptions for each map to indicate which specific areas do have a significant decreasing or increasing trend. We also included graphs side by side with the map of each extreme rainfall event to show the significance level of certain points in the study area. Please see figure 6 in the revised version.

Q11: Lines 254-272: where is this data/information from? It is not clear how it has been collected and should be presented more clearly as quotations from experts/interviews etc. Line 277 mentions 'an interview', was it just one?

 Response:  In Q4 above, we have already indicated that we used the key informants and focus group discussants as qualitative data sources to describe the impacts of climate change in the study area.

Q12: Lines 282-284: I do not understand this sentence. Is it the environment affecting the social cohesion or the opposite, or both are influencing each other? Again, where is the evidence for this? This claim is unfounded.

  Response:  Yes, they influence each other. Due to the frequent droughts that occurred in the study area, the local communities are striving for survival by engaging in other income generating activities. They gradually lose their strong social bond and shared values that helped them maintain their environment for many hundred years. These days, the youth are not interested in participating in environmental conservation work. Because agricultural lands are not as productive as they were in the past. They don’t want to rely solely on income from agriculture. The environment at present is not providing all of their necessities.

           The claim is directly taken from our key informants and focus group respondents. See the revision on the same line, highlighted in yellow.

Q13: Lines 364-365: This is unfounded. Where is the evidence/citation?

 Response:  To my understanding, there is no need to mention a reference for this. It is well understood that extreme climate events (flood and drought) have widespread impacts on agriculture, forestry, health, infrastructure, etc.

Q14: Lines 409-417: This is unfounded. Where is the evidence/citation?

 Response:  These are the discussions of results indicated on line 426-434. It is our finding and no need to put reference.

Q15: Table 2: climate is typically characterised on 30-year timescales, or at least 10 years. Linear trends of this kind are not suitable representations of changing climate. IT would be statistically more robust to use periods of time (e.g. 10 years) and undertake inferential statistical tests of whether they are significantly different, e.g. t-tests or chi-squared tests etc.

 Response:  It is a really interesting comment. Thank you very much. We have to compare the change in each decade rather than show a linear trend. This provides a real picture of the change. In addition to showing trends for each decade, we also did a t-test to compare whether the change in the means of temperature in the three distinctive periods (decades) is significant or not. The result indicates that there was a statistically significant (p<0.05) difference in the mean temperature of the three periods.

It is incorporated into Figs. 7 and 8 as well as tables 3 and 4 in the revised version of our manuscript.                   

Q16: Lines 536: This seems like a point where a 'Discussion' section might begin?

Response:  Actually, discussions were presented at the end of topics and subtopics. We began discussions on line 254-311. We had also discussions in several sections of the manuscript. E.g., on lines 334-346, 370-378, 426-434, 451-453, 466-470, and 550-571

 

Q17: Comments on the Quality of English Language

General: a thorough grammatical editorial review should be done, e.g. line 43 should be "the occurrence of extreme weather events has become..."

 Response:  Thank you. We found a number of grammatical errors and vague terminologies. We did editorial work on revising vague terminologies and grammatical errors.

Q18; Line 18: P should be lowercase (p-value, not P-value)

 Response:  Yes, We accepted it and revise accordingly.

Q19; Line 25: is 'terrifying' the correct word here? it is a bit odd in this context.

 Response:  Yes, it is replaced by other word.

Q20: Line 26: transmission, not transition?

Response:  It is noted and revised accordingly.

Q21: Line 122: remove extra space?

Response:  Yes, we did it.

Q22: Line 172: could subscripts be used to denote variations of variables, e.g. T_{max}, with max as a subscript

Response:  Actually, they are not put in subscript form.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, an important and valuable article. Minor organizational and moderate grammatical revisions are needed before publication. Needs careful grammatical proofreading to refine and clarify terms of English that could be misunderstood, e.g.,

 

Abstract: " The continuous decline in farmland productivity is terrifying the livelihood and traditional ceremonies of the 25 Konso people..."

 

Line 49: "...to describe the bondage that exists between society, environment, and culture." rather than 'bonds'

 

Line 119: " Astronomically, Konso Zone is located..."

'ravens' rather than 'ravines', etc.

 

Photos of the cultural and natural aspects of the landscape in the early sections would strengthen the article.

 

Also in early sections: establish rain fed agriculture, traditional water management facilities, grass roofing, and ceremonial practices involving junipers as critical to the living cultural heritage. Then, when impacts are discussed, the reader will remember them.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Certain sections should be carefully reviewed for English language terms-use caution with 'fancy' English terms or simplify.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

General comment

Overall, an important and valuable article. Minor organizational and moderate grammatical revisions are needed before publication. Needs careful grammatical proofreading to refine and clarify terms of English that could be misunderstood, e.g.,

Response: Thank you for your valuable comments that we provided to improve the quality of the manuscript. Based on your comments, we took the time to check the grammatical errors and make an English-language edition to improve the quality of the manuscript. We highlighted the revised statements and words in yellow in the revised manuscript.

 

Abstract: "The continuous decline in farmland productivity is terrifying the livelihood and traditional ceremonies of the Konso people..."

           Response: Thank you. It is replaced by other word.

 

Line 49: "...to describe the bondage that exists between society, environment, and culture." rather than 'bonds'

 

Line 119: " Astronomically, Konso Zone is located..." 'ravens' rather than 'ravines', etc.

           Response: Thank you. It is revised

 

 

Photos of the cultural and natural aspects of the landscape in the early sections would strengthen the article.

 

Also in early sections: establish rain fed agriculture, traditional water management facilities, grass roofing, and ceremonial practices involving junipers as critical to the living cultural heritage. Then, when impacts are discussed, the reader will remember them.

 

 Response: Thank you again for your comment. We incorporated these issues on the revised version of our manuscript. Please see lines 148-162.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Certain sections should be carefully reviewed for English language terms-use caution with 'fancy' English terms or simplify.

Response: We did our best to improve the English language in the revised version of our manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The theme of the article is the threat of climate change to world cultural heritage sites, and the author limits the research scope to Konso Cultural Landscape. The author clearly explains the climate change trends such as rainfall and temperature that occur on the landscape.

However, I would like to raise the following questions:

1. How to prove that the local world cultural heritage site has really deteriorated? The evidence of only a decrease in the frequency of local traditional rituals or damage to stone walls is not convincing enough and lacks quantitative basis.

2. Is there a direct correlation between climate change and world heritage sites? The author proves that there have indeed been significant changes in rainfall and temperature. Although the author has discussed the correlation between climate change and world heritage, these discussions are only based on empirical judgment and lack sufficient evidence to support it

3. Even though climate change has a direct impact on the deterioration of the condition of world cultural heritage sites, the author has not provided an explanation of the contribution of its impact among all influencing factors. For example, in addition to climate change, changes in socio-economic structure can also lead to a decrease in local agricultural productivity and rural population migration; For another example, the improvement of residents' income levels and the advancement of construction technology can also lead to changes in the original local buildings. Without considering other factors, it cannot be proven that the impact of climate change is significant enough

Thus, it is suggested to improve the article in the following areas:

1. Establish a measurement system that can trace the status of world cultural heritage sites in a temporal dimension, in order to prove that they have indeed deteriorated or may deteriorate in the future

2. Attribute the changes in the status of world cultural heritage sites and establish a direct connection between those influencing factors and climate change

3. Provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate the significance of climate change among all influencing factors affecting world cultural heritage sites

In addition, some articles require adjustments in their wording. For example, in lines 142-154, there is a significant amount of repetition in the content of the two paragraphs.

Author Response

Reviewer 3:

General comment

I would acknowledge the work of the authors on this interesting and timely manuscript. Indeed studies on the African region around climate change and heritage, including the intangible, are few. However, I feel the quality of the presentation of the manuscript, the methods, and some of the findings need to be significant revised to be publishable.

 Response: Thank you for your comments. We did our best to improve the quality of the manuscript to meet the standards of the journal. We thoroughly went through the method and result sections of the manuscript and made it as readable as possible. The manuscript also passed through serious English-language editing. We highlighted the revised statements and words in yellow in the revised manuscript.

However, I would like to raise the following questions:

Q1. How to prove that the local world cultural heritage site has really deteriorated? The evidence of only a decrease in the frequency of local traditional rituals or damage to stone walls is not convincing enough and lacks quantitative basis.

Response: Thank you for your critical observation and comment. The Konso Cultural Landscape is inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List on the basis of criteria iii and V. Based on criteria iii, there is a unique or exceptional cultural tradition of harnessing the harsh environment by executing spectacular dry stone terrace works from the top to the bottom of their landscape. This environmental knowledge has been transferred from old to young generations through various ritual ceremonies. However, due to the reduction in crop production as a result of frequent droughts, these ritual ceremonies are not practiced today.  For example, kara ceremonies have not been practiced in all of the walled towns of Konso since 2000. The young generation is not interested in or willing to continue what has been practiced by their elders. As a result, they don’t want to engage in environmental conservation activities. The terraces in agricultural fields, which are maintained after each harvesting season, are no longer maintained and susceptible to damage. The young even began to sell terrace stones for construction purposes and anthropomorphic wooden statues (Wakas), which are erected at the graves of ritual chiefs, to brokers. As per criteria v, the Konso cultural landscape is listed as world heritage due to its traditional human settlement and land-use system. Their traditional housing, covered by grass, and their nucleated settlement are the most typical. However, today, the majority are converted into modern houses covered with corrugated iron sheets. The settlement pattern also changes from being nucleated at the top of the mountain to dispersing into relatively fertile riversides in the lowland areas.  All these are contributing to the deterioration of the landscape. All these evidences were drawn from interviews and repeated observations. A detailed analysis of the landscape transformation was made in our submitted paper, “Social-ecological System in Transition: Understanding the Dynamics of Konso Cultural Landscape, a UNESCO Designated World Heritage site”.

 

 Q2. Is there a direct correlation between climate change and world heritage sites? The author proves that there have indeed been significant changes in rainfall and temperature. Although the author has discussed the correlation between climate change and world heritage, these discussions are only based on empirical judgment and lack sufficient evidence to support it

 

Response: Thank you again for your comment. The correlation between climate change and world heritage sites depends on the criteria used for the inscription. In the case of terraced stones and agricultural systems, they have a direct correlation. They are directly affected by the change in climate. In terms of the cultural traditions, there is an indirect correlation. We also provided how climate parameters, including extreme events, are changing and affecting the cultural landscape.

Q3. Even though climate change has a direct impact on the deterioration of the condition of world cultural heritage sites, the author has not provided an explanation of the contribution of its impact among all influencing factors. For example, in addition to climate change, changes in socio-economic structure can also lead to a decrease in local agricultural productivity and rural population migration; For another example, the improvement of residents' income levels and the advancement of construction technology can also lead to changes in the original local buildings. Without considering other factors, it cannot be proven that the impact of climate change is significant enough

Response: Thank you for your comment. Of course, there are many contributing factors to the deterioration of the cultural landscape. Changes in socio-economic structure, technology, and other factors definitely have influences on the landscape. The effects of these influencing factors on the landscape are undeniable. The advancement of socio-economic as well as technological factors is always there. However, we collected a lot of evidence from the interviews as well as other published papers that the change in climate (frequent droughts and floods) had a substantial impact on the deterioration of the landscape. We tried to discuss their connection as per the interview result. We will incorporate the contribution of each factor in our upcoming paper entitled “Vulnerability of the Konso cultural landscape to climate change and associated factors” using the statistical techniques of principal component analysis and analysis of variance.

Thus, it is suggested to improve the article in the following areas:

1. Establish a measurement system that can trace the status of world cultural heritage sites in a temporal dimension, in order to prove that they have indeed deteriorated or may deteriorate in the future

Response: We provided our reflection above.

2. Attribute the changes in the status of world cultural heritage sites and establish a direct connection between those influencing factors and climate change

Response: We provided our reflection above.

3. Provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate the significance of climate change among all influencing factors affecting world cultural heritage sites

Response: We provided our reflection above.

In addition, some articles require adjustments in their wording. For example, in lines 142-154, there is a significant amount of repetition in the content of the two paragraphs.

Response: Thank you so much. Yes indeed. The paragraphs are almost similar. We deleted the first paragraph.