World Heritage Sites Face Rising Water Risks from Climate Change

Scientists warn that water risk threatens iconic heritage sites such as the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

From Zimbabwe’s ‘The Smoke that Thunders,’ Victoria Falls, to the awe-inspiring Pyramids in Egypt and the romantic Taj Mahal in India, these iconic sites are facing a growing threat – water risk.

Several World Heritage sites could be lost forever without urgent action to protect nature, for instance, through the restoration of vital landscapes like wetlands, warns a new report by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The analysis indicates that droughts and flooding are threatening these sites.

World Heritage sites are places of outstanding universal cultural, historical, scientific, or natural significance, recognised and preserved for future generations through inscription on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

About 73 percent of the 1,172 non-marine World Heritage sites are exposed to at least one severe water risk, such as drought, flooding, or river or coastal flooding. About 21 percent of the sites face dual problems of too much and too little water, according to an analysis using WRI’s Aqueduct data.

While the global share of World Heritage Sites exposed to high-to-extremely high levels of water stress is projected to rise from 40 percent to 44 percent by 2050, impacts will be far more severe in regions like the Middle East and North Africa, parts of South Asia, and northern China, the report found.

The report highlighted that water risks are threatening many of the more than 1,200 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Taj Mahal, for example, faces water scarcity that is increasing pollution and depleting groundwater, both damaging the mausoleum. In 2022, a massive flood closed all of Yellowstone National Park, costing over USD 20 million in infrastructure repairs.

River flooding is affecting the desert city of Chan Chan in Peru. According to WRI’s Aqueduct platform, the UNESCO site and its surrounding region in La Libertad face an extremely high risk of river flooding. By 2050, the population affected by floods each year in an average, non-El Niño year in La Libertad is expected to double from 16,000 to 34,000 due to a combination of human activity and climate change. In an El Niño year, that increase may be even higher.

In addition, the biodiversity-rich Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, the sacred city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico, and Morocco’s Medina of Fez are facing growing water risks, threatening both the sites and the millions of people who depend on them for food, livelihoods, culture, or tourism, the report said.

Straddling the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1989 for its vital ecosystem, its role in livelihoods, and as a major tourism drawcard. Despite its reputation for massive cascading water, Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls has faced recurring droughts over the past decade, at times drying up to barely a trickle. The rainforest surrounding the falls is home to a rich diversity of wildlife and plants.

According to WRI, Victoria Falls experienced droughts as recently as 2016, 2019, and 2024. Research on rainfall patterns shows that the onset of the rainy season, normally in October, is arriving later each year. That means in a drought year, relief takes longer, and prolonged drought affects the people, crops, and economy around it.

An Aqueduct analysis found that Victoria Falls ranks as a medium drought risk, below the more than 430 UNESCO World Heritage Sites ranked as high drought risk. This is primarily because relatively low population density and limited human development immediately surrounding the site reduce overall exposure.

“However, the site faces increasing pressure from tourism-related infrastructure development, and data shows the probability of drought occurrence is high—a finding reinforced by the many recent droughts,” said the report. “Climate change is expected to make these droughts more frequent, and recovery will take longer, especially in unprepared areas. The time between droughts may not be long enough for the ecosystem to recover, which is particularly concerning for Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls.”

The report recommends swift action to restore vital landscapes locally that support stable water systems, and investment in nature-based solutions like planting trees to restore headwater forests or revitalising wetlands to capture floodwaters and recharge aquifers. Political commitment is key.

Countries have also been urged to enact national conservation policies to protect vital landscapes from unsustainable development, elevate water’s status as a global common good, and establish equitable transboundary agreements on water sharing.

Zimbabwe hosted the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Ramsar Convention in Victoria Falls under the theme ‘Protecting Wetlands for our Common Future.’ The protection of global water resources is now urgent.

“You will find political will to invest in nature exists worldwide,” Samantha Kuzma, Aqueduct Data Lead at WRI, told IPS. “Communities are finding ways to protect and restore vital landscapes like wetlands. The problem is that these efforts are piecemeal. Globally, we are not seeing the political will at the scale needed for real, lasting change.”

The world needs to mobilise up to $7 trillion by 2030 for global water infrastructure to meet water-related SDG commitments and address decades of underinvestment, according to the World Bank. Currently, nearly 91 percent of annual water spending comes from the public sector, with less than 2 percent from the private sector, highlighting the need for firm commitment to policy reforms, better planning, and management of existing resources.

“We are at the point where inaction is more costly than action,” Kuzma said, emphasizing that the world must understand water’s fundamental role in sustaining economies. “Take UNESCO World Heritage Sites, for example. Their ecological and cultural worth is priceless, and they often underpin local economies. Any closure or damage sends immediate ripple effects through communities. Globally, we are falling short in protecting nature. To change course, we must first understand why.”