Sharing European experiences in the sustainable management of cultural heritage at risk under climate change scenario

In the last decade, managers and curators of cultural heritage sites are dealing with new challenges for the safeguarding of archaeological sites, historic gardens, monumental complexes, historic buildings and related collections, due to the adverse impact of slow and extreme climate events and anthropogenic activities. In the context of this global changing, the present contribution aims at sharing acquired experiences and best practices in Europe in facing these challenges in the framework of international and national projects coordinated by CNR-ISAC. The activities are specifically addressed to strengthening the preparedness phase of risk reduction and management cycle, providing tools and solutions to support policy and decision makers, curators and cultural heritage managers in the identification of hazard prone areas and the evaluation of the vulnerabilities at local scale. Relevant outcomes from the Interreg Central Europe projects ProteCHt2save and STRENCH will be illustrated together with their exploitation in other ongoing national projects, which implementation is strongly based on a multidisciplinary collaboration among the scientific community, public authorities and the private sector (PNNR ECOSISTER, PNRR CHANGES, Extraordinary National plan for monitoring and conservation of Italian cultural heritage). In particular, this contribution outlines the methodological approach and the main findings related to the implementation of the “Risk mapping tool for cultural heritage protection” that provides hazard maps for Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, where cultural and natural heritage is mostly exposed to heavy rain, flooding and prolonged drought. The tool enables assessing the risk of cultural heritage assets based on:  identification of climate and pollution parameters with priority in causing impacts on cultural heritage;  selection and application of appropriate damage functions;  computation of extreme changes of precipitation and temperature performed using climate extreme indices;  hazard analysis by exploiting Copernicus satellites services CAMS (Atmosphere Monitoring) and C3S (Climate Change), and other Earth Observation-based data and products;  purposely elaborated data form in situ air quality monitoring stations;  development of projections of hazard at territorial level by using outputs from Global/Regional Climate Models from the Euro-CORDEX experiment in the near (2021-2050) and far (2071-2100) future, under two different IPCC scenarios, stabilizing (RCP4.5) and pessimistic (RCP8.5);  application of the methodology for vulnerability assessment of cultural and natural heritage set up in the framework of the Interreg Central EU Project STRENCH taking into account three main aspects of cultural heritage: susceptibility, exposure and resilience;  Testing and validation of the methods and approaches at case studies. The results from the testing of the “risk mapping tool” in selected European case studies for different types of heritage allow concluding on the feasibility and applicability of the tool presented in the perspective of optimizing preparedness strategies and mitigating the risk of cultural and natural heritage exposed to climate change impact. The final aim of the research is to satisfy the needs and requirements of stakeholders and policymakers responsible for disaster mitigation and safeguarding of cultural heritage assets and to foster the active involvement of citizens and local communities in the decision-making process. A further objective is to support policy and decision makers in putting forward recommendations for the integration of measures dedicated to the protection of cultural heritage in the national plans of disaster risk reduction and climate change mitigation.