Designing with Hima: Integrating Desert Ecosystem Enhancement, Cultural Heritage Conservation and Urban Development in AlUla Region, Saudi Arabia
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2025
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Desertification now jeopardises more than 20% of the globe’s land masses. One of the causes of this is the increasing disconnection between desert ecosystems, human communities and cultures, which were once interconnected by traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and practices that offered a way of living in desert ecosystems without depleting resources and without environmental degradation. This is especially so in the context of Saudi Arabia. As globalising forces of urbanisation disconnect cultural heritage sites from community and environment, communities are adapting to modern living, while new cities are growing within a cocoon of universal sustainability principles. But this diminishes stewardship of landscape by local communities through their traditional practices of ecological hima. Hence, the broader landscape is being rendered more vulnerable to the forces of desertification.
This research addresses the possibility of concurrently mitigating desertification and fostering community well-being by reconnecting local people with their surroundings, traditions and cultural heritage. This qualitative research uses a case study approach to investigate the AlUla region, Saudi Arabia, one of the most abundant cultural heritage sites within productive desert ecosystems. The researcher employed multiple research methods, such as semi-structured interviews with elders, site visits and observation, research through design, workshops with experts, and a review of existing Arabic and English secondary data and materials. The results generated from a thematic analysis approach show three clear findings. The first is the recognition of detailed strategies relating to how hima TEK contributes to mitigating desertification. The second presents a clear linkage between the hima system and cultural heritage conservation and describes how it can be preserved through local TEK. These two aspects contribute to the third contribution regarding the role of landscape design and how design can inform and be informed by local TEK. This presents opportunities for hima TEK to be integrated into current and future urban master plans and developments associated with ecosystem enhancement and cultural heritage conservation.
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