Paper Title
A Methodology For Developing Sustainability Indicators For Heritage Places In Egypt
Abstract
Sustainable Development is now becoming the basic concept for solving problems of human settlements and improving living conditions. The concept of "Sustainability" has been expanded considerably after (Agenda 21) at the Rio Earth Summit to encompass social, cultural and community development factors, including tangible and intangible heritage. This expansion reflects an increasing interest in heritage across societies to include not only monuments, architectural masterpieces, or historic arte facts, but also include landscapes, industrial and engineering works, vernacular constructions, urban and rural settlements and intangible elements like temporary art forms and skills. Despite its crucial importance, heritage conservation has been absent from the sustainable development debates and action plans. However, many researches and studies emphasized the use of environmental assessment methods to improve the performance of heritage places. Yet, heritage places need its own tailor-made indicators to include environmental, social, and economic aspects. Fundamentally, Sustainability Indicators (SIs) are widely considered the way forward to operationalize sustainability. They are an essential mechanism to achieve the objective of sustainable development, and can be a useful and possibly vital element to move sustainability from theory into practice. But what are the appropriate sustainability indicators that fit for heritage places? And what measures are needed to promote the safeguarding of such places? To seek answers for these questions, the paper aims to provide a methodology to develop a set of indicators appropriate and adequate to the context of heritage places in Egypt. These indicators can be a guiding policy instrument that identify the ways forward for decision and policy makers, donors and concerned authorities in drawing policies, monitoring development and allocating resources on a solid basis.
Keywords- Heritage places, Sustainable indicators, Urban sustainability in Egypt.