5. Factors Affecting the Property

5.1 Analysis of Factors Affecting the Property

An effective approach to a WHS’s management should be based upon a sound understanding of the current challenges and opportunities the property is facing.

'Factors affecting the property' refers to a standard list of factors affecting the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties, adopted by the World Heritage Committee in 2008, This list, available on the World Heritage State of Conservation database comprises 14 primary threats (for example, Pollution), each encompassing a number of secondary factors (for example, Pollution of Marine Waters, Solid Waste). This list is used for all World Heritage monitoring processes at an international level.

It is recommended that World Heritage property managers use this standard list of factors to evaluate challenges and opportunities in their management plans. This will increase alignment between language and approaches employed in property-level management and international monitoring mechanisms such as Periodic Reporting.

Increasing consistency between data collection at property and international levels will reduce the resources required to undertake individual monitoring processes. Data collected for property-level monitoring will be able to feed into international monitoring, and vice versa. This synergy will also support insight into changes in the impacts of factors over time.

Factors affecting the property could be presented:

• In tabular form, with details including causes, affected attributes and the impacts of the factor in terms of extent and severity (28). This can be used to shape and prioritise management actions. A suggested format is included in the management plan template
• As additional narrative to expand upon information in the table where this is considered useful. This may include reference to other relevant documents, for example a climate change risk assessment or fabric survey. If relevant assessments of specific aspects of the property have already been undertaken for other purposes, the management plan can refer across to these. Work should not be duplicated specifically for inclusion in the management plan

It may also be useful to indicate the organisations, teams and agencies involved in the data collection process, for ease of reference for future updates.

Some factors may not be relevant for current property management. These can be excluded from the management plan, and the exclusion reconsidered each time the plan is reviewed.

5.2 State of Conservation of Attributes

Any management plan review should, as a minimum, evaluate the state of conservation of each identified attribute of OUV, and undertake a general assessment of integrity and authenticity.

This will involve consolidating factors that may affect each attribute of OUV, to understand the cumulative impact on each attribute and on the property as a whole. The outcome will be a body of baseline data which can be used as a resource for future monitoring and reporting. This data should consider any existing assessments of the state of conservation of attributes: for example, it should reference where individual assets forming attributes or contributing to them are on the Heritage at Risk Register.

The management plan template provides a suggested template for presenting this data, based on the format used for analysis in Periodic Reporting.

Footnotes

28. UNESCO., ICCROM., ICOMOS., and IUCN (2023). 'Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0', UNESCO, 39. (Accessed 19 February 2025)