Evaluation of Persian gardens on the UNESCO world heritage list in terms of sustainable management practices

The preservation of historical values aims to protect and develop a society, its constituent values, and all the dynamics these values encompass. The fundamental tool to achieve this goal is to integrate these values into social and spatial life. In Persian architecture and garden art, all basic concepts such as spatial configuration and visual combination, movement, dynamism, symmetry, balance, and preservation are strongly and meaningfully present. This traditional style embodies characteristics that transcend the boundaries of harmony and order, evoke privacy and respect, are functional and beneficial, devoid of redundancy and excess, and self-sufficient. In 2011 (during the thirty-fifth session), it was decided to inscribe the Persian Garden Art and 9 exemplary Persian gardens on the UNESCO World Heritage List with Registration number 1372 (UNESCO, 2011). The inclusion of these areas with universal values in the World Heritage List can help investigate the positive and negative effects on the sustainable management of Persian Gardens, evaluate the impacts on the sustainable management of these areas, and develop more effective strategies for their preservation. Unique values and special places like Persian Gardens encompass their own identities and social behaviors. The preservation of small-scale existing green and open spaces, often located at the most accessible point of historical textures and surviving to the present day, is crucial for the ecological sustainability of congested urban plans. Therefore, in comprehensive research, modeling the sustainability factors in Persian gardens according to contemporary paradigms and ensuring sustainable management will be beneficial for their development. Within the scope of this research, along with a detailed literature review for material definition and problem identification, writings and books published in different languages by historians, travelers, and scientists who researched Persian Gardens in ancient times were investigated. Projects carried out in the field of similar universal values included in UNESCO's World Heritage List, legal and political systems, selection conditions, and general operations were examined to scrutinize the advantages and disadvantages of being on the World Heritage List. The nomination file of Persian Gardens for the World Heritage List was examined, and as a result of field and survey studies of 9 gardens, the effects of sustainable management were investigated through UNESCO support projects and encouraging warnings from the beginning to the present. Determining the binding boundaries of physical, ecological, economic, and social values possessed by urban open and green spaces created with traditional methods and having universal values, and protecting their surrounding buffer zones, allows for the development of multi-functional landscape areas protected from the effects of increasingly intense and negative urban development, with consciously received international support to develop the concept of sustainable cities. Moreover, the implementation of protection and development policies that are continuously and systematically managed and monitored in the short and long term with holistic sustainable management strategies will increase the sense of belonging and responsibility of local people and the public towards World Heritage sites.