SEA-CCHange: Coastal communities' heritage in times of climate change

SEA-CCHange is a three-year research program exploring how coastal communities perceive and adapt to climate change in relation to cultural heritage. It prioritises diverse perspectives to foster inclusive, collaborative solutions, documenting what has been lost, changed, valued, and is recoverable, all of which will be archived in an open-access repository.

In the climate and cultural heritage discussion, diverse narratives and local practices are often overlooked. SEA-CCHange seeks to change this by examining three critical aspects.

First, the project assesses the risks climate change poses to cultural heritage, comparing these risks with how they are perceived by local communities. Second, it investigates how heritage practices evolve in response to environmental changes, highlighting the ways communities adapt and sustain cultural traditions. Third, it documents how heritage is lived and practiced in changing conditions, archiving this knowledge in an open-access repository to foster collaborative solutions that address what has been lost, transformed, and preserved.

SEA-CCHange focuses on six international cases, including coastal communities in Ireland, UK, the Netherlands, Indonesia, and the Caribbean. The consortium partners span a wide range of inter- and transdisciplinary topics and societal partners that span local government, research policy, citizen science, fisheries and regional cultural heritage, who will collaborate to form a socio-ecological archive on/for the coastal community experience and promote outreach to have their voices heard.

The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Environmental Protection Agency Ireland (IEPA), and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and runs from 2024 to 2027