About

Elizabeth Brabec is a professor of landscape architecture and regional planning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research focuses on culture and heritage and their impacts on migration and displacement, as well as perceptions of land and nature.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Geography
• History
• Business
• Philosophy
• Environmental ethics
• Economic geography
• Operating system
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Elizabeth Brabec interview

  2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology

  Interview by: Catherine Morrissey, Center for Historic Architecture and Design, University of Delaware, Newark, DE

  Publisher

• A Multifunctional Analysis of Open Space Ownership and Use in the City of Vancouver, Canada

  De Gruyter eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Business
  • Economic geography
  PublisherDOI

• Heritage, Migration and Sustainability - Dr. Elizabeth Brabec

  2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Environmental ethics
  Publisher

• Small Sacral sites as both religious features and landscape networks in Central Europe

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2019-10-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Though often overlooked due to their scale, networks of small sacral Christian architecture in the form of local churches, pilgrimage churches, chapels and small sacral sites, hold a significant importance in rural cultural landscapes in Europe and beyond. The networks are significant in their social stratification, diversity, distribution and abundance across cultural landscapes. The most significant development of networks of small sacral architecture in central and eastern Europe was during the Baroque under Catholicism, although the tradition builds on the marking of sacred sites during earlier periods of history throughout Europe. A case study of the cultural landscapes of sacred sites in Bohemia, Czech Republic, illuminates the social layers that these sites produced, and identifies critical issues of documentation and challenges of interpretation of these networks. Sacred sites in Bohemia form three networks of cultural landscapes that are distinct from each other and only minimally connected: the sacred landscapes of the ruling class connecting family churches, crypts, shrines and hermitages; the networks of pilgrimage sites and routes; and the networks of small sacred sites, chapels and churches that dotted the agricultural landscape. These networks individually and collectively connected nature and culture in both intimate and large scale landscapes. Small sacral sites are often accompanied by monumental single trees or a compositionally organised group of trees to create a sacred composition of nature and culture. They were important landmarks, indicators of place and landscape features of spatial organization for the residents of rural communities. At the other end of the range of scales, the monumental composed landscapes of the ruling class, covering upwards of 30 kilometers in length, connected religious sites (hermitages and pilgrimage chapels), family churches and crypts, and important natural sites, particularly natural water features. This session elaborates on the origin, historical development and landscape values of small sacral Christian architecture, as well as their relation to separate natural features that create part of the sacral composition. The session explores the issues of documentation of these networks of sites, and the challenges that interpretation of connected sites over such large land areas creates.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Small Sacral Christian Architecture in the Cultural Landscapes of Europe

  Acta horticulturae et regiotecturae · 2019-05-01 · 9 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Though often overlooked due to its scale, small sacral Christian architecture has a significant importance in cultural landscapes in Europe and beyond. It represents a shared international cultural heritage and is significant in its diversity, distribution and abundance across cultural landscapes. The tradition of the artistic depiction of the cross in Christianity dates back to the 4 th century AD. The first monuments in the form of crosses were placed in open landscapes in Scotland in the 7 th century. The most important period for the spread of small sacral architecture of Catholic origin in eastern Europe was during the Baroque, thus most of the preserved small sacral monuments date back to the late 17 th ,18 th and 19 th centuries. They are often accompanied by monumental single trees or a compositionally organised group of trees and create a sacred composition of nature and culture. They have become important landmarks, indicators of place and landscape features of spatial organization, representing a significant historical legacy and cultural heritage for future generations. This article elaborates on the origin, historical development and landscape values of small sacral Christian architecture, as well as their relation to separate natural monuments or natural features that create part of the sacral composition, such as memorial trees growing around them. This article introduces the topic of sacral architecture and its contribution to the character and identity of European cultural landscapes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cultural Heritage and Climate Change: Exploring the Impacts and Issues

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2019-10-07

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  As noted at the 2017 ICOMOS Assembly in Delhi, cultural heritage is both under threat from climate change, and an asset in our attempts to adapt to and mitigate its impacts. The Paris Agreement emphasizes the need for urgency about climate change; cultural heritage can play a central role in this effort. For example, iconic sites at risk from storms, coastal erosion, wildfires or permafrost thaw can alert public to the very real impacts and costs of climate change. World Heritage Sites (WHS) around the world play a key role in alerting the public to the impacts of local climate change because they are highly visible, and are acknowledged as being important to national, regional and local heritage. As such, broad publicity about impacts and continuing losses such as the news coverage of the sea-level rise at Rapa Nui and Skara Brae and the degradation of the Cedars of Lebanon illustrate the value of both the iconic sites, their resources, and the wide media coverage they can project. Loss and damage due to climate change also includes the impacts on large landscapes and their associated communities. The loss of cultural heritage in these landscapes runs the gamut from intangible heritage such as folk tales, to immoveable cultural heritage, to the lifeways of cultures that have developed over centuries and millennia. Placing those impacts into a broader context is the role, and the goal, of the CCHWG Working Group. This session will address ongoing work by the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group (CCHWG) of ICOMOS that explores the nexus between climate change and heritage. Heritage interacts with climate change through a spectrum of impacts from the physical degradation of standing structures and site ecosystems, to the role that cultural heritage plays in the resilience of communities and their ontological security. Although the focus of the session will be on the impacts of climate change on rural landscapes, the discussion will cover the broad range of the work of the committee. Attached to this abstract is the full report of the Working Group, delivered to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) on June 3, 2019 at the 43rd Meeting of the WHC in Baku, Azerbaijan. The audience will be asked to engage with the report to identify publications and case study examples that should be incorporated into the next steps of the work of the CCHWG.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Future of Our Pasts

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2019-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  On July 3rd, 2019, the Climate Change and Heritage Working Group of ICOMOS delivered a new report on the critical importance of heritage issues to international climate change policy, to the States Parties of the World Heritage Committee. Titled "The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action," the report was co-published by ICOMOS and the Center for Heritage and Society with funding by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN).The Climate Change and Heritage Working Group’s (CCHWG) brief is to (more on the Working Group’s brief can be accessed here:(1) Develop and coordinate ICOMOS inputs into the update of the 2007 World Heritage Committee “Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties.” This will include soliciting and collecting inputs from various ICOMOS constituencies including National Committee and International Scientific Committees, synthesizing those inputs and offering them in a timely and helpful matter to the joint UNESCO-ICCROM-IUCN-ICOMOS Policy update process.(2) Develop a draft global climate change organizational engagement program for ICOMOS (the “Roadmap”). The ICOMOS Roadmap would suggest a framework for comprehensive engagement by ICOMOS members on climate change including suggested activities and areas of engagement and responsibility for various ICOMOS International Scientific Committees, National Committees, specialized bodies and the Secretariat.(3) Coordinating the drafting of a new ICOMOS Charter on Climate Change and Heritage. A charter is ICOMOS’s most formal type of international doctrinal document, addressing heritage and conservation as a discipline. The consideration and adoption of charters is governed by specific procedures set out in the ICOMOS Rules of Procedure. The pursuit of Charter as a capstone to the Working Group efforts is advisable both because the outcome will provide authoritative guidance on best practices for the managing of heritage in the face of climate change but also because the inclusive process is required for charter consideration is perhaps the most comprehensive way to engage ICOMOS members on a topic. The charter is expected to be a map to the Policy Document but will include all types of cultural heritage (not just World Heritage) and may extend to areas that the WHC chooses not to include in its Policy for political or other reasons. Target completion draft: October 2019 (final draft submission at ICOMOS annual general meeting; Rabat, Morocco); October 2020: adoption at the 20th ICOMOS General Assembly (Sydney, Australia).

  Publisher

• The role of Religious Sites and Structures in Rural Landscapes and Communities

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2019-10-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This panel explores the heritage of religious sites in rural landscapes and communities of central and eastern Europe, and Morocco. Religious sites and their community networks within the rural landscape are often overlooked as a collective resource. However, they provide overlapping levels of order in the landscape that derive from various social classes and religious traditions. Often these layers of class and spiritual tradition are invisible to those outside of the class/social/cultural group that created it and appear only as isolated remnant icons unrelated to their communities or landscape complexes. However, closer reading of the monuments, sites and landscapes of these areas reveal connected networks of places and routes that define a cultural and nuanced reading of both society and the natural landscape. They are also an important resource, that if interpreted, can be a driver for tourism and economic development. This panel will present experiences from three different regions: Musteata on the fortified churches of Transylvania, Romania; Ziss and Smolik on the place of Jewish sites in the Saharan region of southern Morocco; and Brabec on the sites and sacral architecture of the rural landscape of western Bohemia, Czechia.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Assessing climate change-induced flooding mitigation for adaptation in Boston’s Charles River watershed, USA

  Landscape and Urban Planning · 2017-06-07 · 69 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Toward an Ecology of Cultural Heritage

  Change Over Time · 2015-09-01 · 36 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Around the globe, the impacts of climate change are increasing the risk of catastrophic events and the resulting loss of human life and communities. Until now, responses to these events and planning for future occurrences have focused on ecological and social impacts, to the almost total exclusion of the impacts on heritage. Cultural heritage includes archaeological sites, historic buildings, and artifacts, but—more importantly—it also includes the meanings, values, and contemporary social behavior associated with these tangible forms of heritage. Thus, place attachment, sense of place, and associated forms of intangible heritage are major societal factors that must be integrated into climate change adaptation and risk management models. Communities, towns, and governments typically disassociate cultural/historical resources from natural resources in issues of planning and development. A transdisciplinary approach to cultural heritage is necessary in times of risk. There is critical need for this approach, since climate change will result in accelerated changes for human communities—from dislocation to a change in the physical manifestations of place. In this paper, we explore approaches to disaster, adaptation, and resilience through the lens of cultural heritage using two case studies: the Gullah Communities of South Carolina and the diverse communities of Eleuthera, Bahamas.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kristina Janečková

  Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

  6 shared

• Yaser Abunnasr

  American University of Beirut

  4 shared

• Miroslav Šálek

  Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

  4 shared

• Peter Kumble

  Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

  4 shared

• Geoffrey Lewis

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  4 shared

• Petr Sklenička

  Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

  4 shared

• Chingwen Cheng

  Pennsylvania State University

  4 shared

• Randall Arendt

  3 shared

Labs

• Landscape Architecture and Regional PlanningPI

Education

• Juris Doctor, School of Law

  University of Maryland Baltimore

  2002

• Master of Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architecture

  University of Guelph

  1984

• Bachelor of Science in Agriculture

  University of Guelph

  1981