Popayán brings a new model connecting water, heritage and the city to UNESCO in Paris

A delegation from the Municipality of Popayán and the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability at UPC presented an innovative proposal at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to integrate urban heritage, water, resilience and territory, and to explore its potential as a replicable model for other historic cities.

On 19 May 2026, a delegation led by the Mayor of Popayán, Juan Carlos Muñoz, and the Director of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Jordi Morató, held a working meeting with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris. Representing the World Heritage Centre were Jyoti Hosagrahar, Deputy Director, and Alessandro Balsamo, Head of the Nomination Unit. The Popayán delegation also included Yessenia Velasco, Social Affairs Manager; Víctor Armando Martínez, Secretary for Municipal Planning; and, on behalf of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability, Olga Lucía Sánchez and Victoria Santander.

• 

• 

The meeting followed an institutional meeting held the previous day with the Permanent Delegation of Colombia to UNESCO, aimed at presenting the initiative and examining how it could fit within the cooperation mechanisms between Colombia and UNESCO.

Water and heritage as structuring elements of the city

The proposal presented in Paris seeks to interpret Popayán from an integrated perspective, in line with the UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL).

The city has maintained a close historical relationship with the Molino, Ejido and Cauca rivers, together with historic water-supply systems, fountains, water basins, bridges and other hydraulic infrastructure that form part of its urban evolution.

This dimension is connected to the Living Museum of Water and Biodiversity of the Colombian Massif, integrated into WAMU-NET, the global network of water museums linked to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme. In this context, Popayán is proposed as an urban gateway node to the Living Museum of Water of the Colombian Massif, connecting the historic city with the water territory on which it depends.

A city where multiple UNESCO dimensions converge

The presentation also highlighted the unique concentration of UNESCO-related initiatives that converge in Popayán: its Historic Centre, the Holy Week Processions as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, its status as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, its documentary heritage, and its connection with WAMU-NET.

The proposal seeks to bring these dimensions together within a common vision in which heritage is not limited to historic buildings, but also encompasses the landscape, water, communities and urban resilience.

Popayán as a methodological laboratory for UNESCO

One of the central themes of the meeting was the possibility of turning Popayán into an urban laboratory for studying the relationship between heritage, water, territory and resilience. The UNESCO Chair proposed expanding the traditional Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) approach to incorporate hydrological and climate-related risks, the vulnerability of historic water infrastructure, and traditional community knowledge.

Within this framework, the World Heritage Centre also presented the tools of the Urban Heritage Atlas, which make it possible to analyse heritage at three complementary scales — buildings and monuments, urban elements, and the relationship with the wider territory.

This approach is particularly well suited to integrating Popayán’s historic centre with its rivers, wetlands, hills, bridges, water systems and surrounding landscape.

The Canopy – Heritage and Sustainable Development platform was also identified as an immediate opportunity to document and share Popayán’s experience internationally. The Municipality of Popayán and the UNESCO Chair on Sustainability will work on preparing a potential case study on “Popayán: Water and Heritage”, while advancing in parallel with international comparative analysis and heritage mapping.

The proposal therefore seeks to use Popayán not only as an object of conservation, but also as a space for methodological experimentation, capable of generating tools that can be transferred to other historic cities facing heritage, water and climate challenges simultaneously.

“We are not seeking visibility: we are offering a laboratory.”