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1. Introduction
Cultural heritage management practices are undergoing a process of change, which sees a shift of the focus from the integrity of heritage assets to the meaning they convey (Tarrafa and Pereira, 2012). In the case of cultural and natural World Heritage (WH) properties, this meaning is highlighted by the values and attributes, both tangible and intangible, that have motivated these properties to be considered as having Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), a value that goes beyond local and national boundaries and whose existence is of significance for the whole of humanity.
On the one side, the cultural values of WH properties are subjective, extrinsic and can change over time. In this regard, Tarrafa and Pereira (2012) defined eight primary values: social, economic, political, historical, aesthetic, scientific, age and ecological values. This typology of primary values was proposed to complement the four cultural values – historical aesthetic/artistic, scientific and social values – recognized at UNESCO's World Heritage Convention (1972, 2008) with the three pillars of sustainable development – ecological, social and economic values, as well as with political (Riganti and Nijkamp, 2005) and age values as the primary values conveyed in cultural heritage assets.
On the other side, the attributes can be defined as those specific elements that convey the value of the site, which, according to the 2019 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention, can represent features as: form and design, materials, functions, traditional building techniques, setting, etc.
The importance of preserving the cultural values of a site has led to the need to implement a tool capable of recognizing the attributes that specify the cultural values of the site, as well as a tool for monitoring the impact that transformations may have on the preservation of the cultural significance of a WH property. Management issues and aggressive development projects are currently the two major factors of threat to WH properties. The cause of the inadequate control of these threats can be traced back to the lack of implementation of proper tools to monitor and assess the impacts of development projects on heritage, as well as the lack of knowledge of decision-makers regarding the tools made available by the World Heritage Centre. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)...