Vulnerability

Currently, any cultural heritage management program or plan would be weak if it did not include strategies for assessing the impact of climate change on properties, adapting its projects to these impacts, and improving the sustainability of its interventions. Since the beginning of this century, efforts to systematise assessments that integrate both exposure to climate impacts and vulnerability of cultural heritage have accelerated. The aim of this work is to review the progress of European projects that have carried out risk and vulnerability assessments of climate change impacts on cultural heritage, using case studies of archaeological sites. Their critical assessment will determine the current state of the art and allow us to identify lines of action for effective adaptation to the challenge posed by climate change.

The present research demonstrates a methodological approach to assess the current and future exposure of Mediterranean coastal areas and heritage assets to Sea Level Rise using open access data regarding elevation, vertical ground motion, and Sea Level Change factors (e.g., ice sheets, glaciers, etc.). The future projections regard 2050 and 2100 and are based on RCP scenarios 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5. The datasets used include Copernicus GLO-30 DSM, the European Ground Motion Service’s dataset on Vertical Ground Motion, the Sea Level Change Projections’ Regional Dataset by NASA, and a hybrid coastline dataset created for the present research purposes to assist in delineating the study area. The research results demonstrate that Greece, Italy, and France’s mainland and cultural heritage assets already face SLR-related hazards but are expected to be further exposed in the future, always taking into consideration the high level of uncertainty regarding SLR projections and RCP scenarios’ hypotheses.

This article studies the role that cultural heritage is playing in the war in Ukraine and identifies some of its threats and vulnerabilities in order to establish a risk context. Throughout it will be shown that, far from considering the destruction of heritage as “collateral damage”, cultural heritage in this war is a war objective, given the symbolic value attributed by the Kremlin to Ukraine's heritage. Thus, its destruction can be exploited by the invading army as part of a hybrid strategy of coercion, domination and destabilization, while the affected communities perceive it as an annihilation aimed at undermining and eliminating their cultural identity.

El principal objetivo de este estudio es identificar indicadores relevantes de vulnerabilidad a las inundaciones (FLOVIs) que puedan servir de base para desarrollar un método basado en indicadores dedicado al patrimonio cultural.

El objetivo de este trabajo es desarrollar un Índice de Daños por Inundaciones para el Patrimonio Cultural (FDICH) basado en SIG que (i) pondere la exposición en función del nivel de catalogación, (ii) pondere la vulnerabilidad en función de una taxonomía ad hoc, (iii) proporcione una densidad de daños por unidad de superficie en lugar de una clasificación por puntos.

Esta investigación se centra en la cartografía de los sitios patrimoniales de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos (EAU), la producción de mapas de uso y cobertura del suelo para ayudar en la evaluación de riesgos, y la identificación de los sitios patrimoniales que pueden ser vulnerables a posibles riesgos naturales, produciendo en última instancia una base de datos SIG para los sitios patrimoniales y mapas de riesgos múltiples.

The Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre has produced the second scientific report. The report represents a collaborative effort of more than 300 disaster risk experts from different sectors and disciplines who have worked together for more than 2 years to present the consequences of disasters on various assets at risk (population, economic sectors, critical infrastructure, ecosystem services and cultural heritage).

The fuzzy buildings service life (FBSL) expert system is a software application that contributes to the preventive conservation of architectural heritage. It establishes the process of evaluation and analysis of the vulnerability and main risks of heritage buildings, managing the durability and service life according to their functionality. This work demonstrates, after a detailed study and analysis of the two main reference standards in the field of risk management, such as the international standard ISO 31000:2009 and the European standard EN 31010:2011, that the FBSL expert system has been developed complying with the specifications established in these standards.This research justifies the use of this method, based on a new expert system that predicts the future useful life of homogeneous heritage buildings around the world. This model manages the risk affecting these buildings and also complies with the aforementioned standards. Finally, the practical application of the FBSLexpert prediction system was carried out through the study of a specific architectural heritage site.