From assessment to implementation: knowledge-action asymmetry in post-disaster heritage recovery in Beirut

This study identifies a critical knowledge-action asymmetry in heritage disaster recovery, where rapid assessment fails to translate automatically into implementation. Following the 2020 Beirut port explosions, which damaged over 650 heritage structures, only 61% of buildings endorsed by experts received stabilisation interventions, with even fewer achieving complete rehabilitation. We argue this asymmetry is produced by a combination of fragmented governance, mismatched institutional timelines, entrenched political-economic pressures, and practical implementation barriers that constrain technical knowledge application in crisis conditions. Through a mixed-methods analysis of 310 buildings and 23 stakeholder interviews, we demonstrate how early institutional positioning created powerful path dependencies. Our analysis reveals that selection mechanisms privileged social parameters over conventional heritage metrics, a shift that reflects core tenets of critical heritage valuation. We also identify diverse recovery pathways, with 26% of rehabilitated buildings recovering outside formal assessment channels. These findings contribute to theories of disaster governance and knowledge integration by showing that effective recovery frameworks must acknowledge governance realities and intentionally bridge the divide between documentation and implementation capacities. This institutional perspective offers new approaches to enhance preservation outcomes in disaster-prone regions facing significant governance and resource constraints.