Factors Affecting Karst World Natural Heritage Properties In The World And The Threat Intensity

The world heritage is among the priceless and irreplaceable assets.Not only of each nation,but of humanity as a whole.The 53 world heritage properties which the World Heritage Committee has decided to inscribed on the List of World Heritage in danger,and 2 world heritage properties have been removed from the World Heritage List.With the increasing number of world heritage properties,the security and conservation of world heritage properties has been to be paid more attention to us.At the beginning of the World Heritage Convention,it is already involved reporting and monitoring of world heritage.The state of conservation and the periodic report are the important components of the monitor,protection and conservation of world heritage properties.The World Heritage Committee will request the relevant Advisory Bodies to forward comments on the information received.The World Heritage Committee adopted a standard list of factors affecting the outstanding universal value of world heritage properties.It consists of a series of 14 primary factors,encompassing each a number of secondary factors.Karst systems are relatively well represented on the World Heritage List and that further guidance to States Parties would be beneficial to indicate the increasingly limited potential for further inscriptions of karst landscape on the World Heritage List.Based on the World Heritage Centre's official website information,threat intensity coefficient method was used to study on spatial-temporal evolution of factors affecting karst world natural heritage properties.Meanwhile,hot spot analyze and Arc GIS spatial analysis were used to analyze the spatial distribution and security of karst world natural heritage properties.The results indicated that:(1)According to the homepage of each world heritage property,the description of outstanding universal value,and the information provided in the nomination file,a total of 30 karst world natural heritage properties were identified worldwide,of which 27 are natural heritage properties and3 are natural and cultural mixed heritage properties.From the perspective of spatial distribution equilibrium,the distribution of 30 karst world natural heritage properties shows an unbalanced pattern,more in the east and north while fewer in the west and south;(2)World Heritage Center divides the world into 5 geographic regions.Karst world natural heritage properties are mainly distributed in Europe and North America,Asia and the Pacific region;Africa,Latin America and the Caribbean have only one heritage property each,and there is no such heritage property in the Arab States.Due to differences in the economic development level and world heritage properties perceptions of various geographical regions,according to the date of inscription of each heritage property,the development process of the karst world natural heritage properties in the world is divided into three stages: the early exploration stage(1978-1990),the rapid development stage(1991-2005)and the mature and stable stage(2006-2020).To the world,the number of heritage properties has increased significantly in the two stages of early exploration and rapid development;for geographic regions,Europe and North America mainly developed faster heritage projects in the two stages of early exploration and rapid development,Asia and the Pacific region has developed rapidly in the two stages of rapid development,maturity and stability.Karst world natural heritage properties is distributed mainly over Europe and North America,Asia and the Pacific.(3)World Heritage Center divides the factors affecting the world properties into 14 first-level factors and 83 second-level factors.Karst world natural heritage properties is affected by 12 of these influencing factors.Management and institutional factors,social/cultural uses of heritage factors are the main factors affecting karst world natural heritage properties;other human activities and utilities or service infrastructure also have a serious impact on karst world natural heritage properties.Human activities pose a far greater threat to the outstanding universal value of karst world natural heritage properties than natural disasters;(4)Take a wide view,although the protection and conservation of world heritage properties has already flown a development,sustainable development of world heritage properties and management utilization of world heritage properties still keep being a basic contradiction.The protection and conservation of world heritages is generally positively correlated with the local economic development level.Although the overall level of economic development in Europe and North America,Asia and the Pacific region is relatively high,the protection of heritage projects in the economically underdeveloped areas of these regions is still worthy of concern;Africa,Latin America and the Caribbean have relatively low levels of economic development.due to the very few karst world natural heritage properties and the policy and financial assistance provided by the international community,the overall protection status is relatively good.