Engineering Geology in Shaping and Preserving the Historic Urban Landscapes and Cultural Heritage: Achievements in UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Abstract

Cultural heritage represents the legacy of human being to the planet earth. It is the evidence of 1,000 years of past generation evolution, to adapt our living condition to environment. Cultural heritage can be intangible (e.g. tradition, custom) and tangible, the latter including various physical objects, from historic landscapes and human transformed landscapes to sacred sites, archaeological sites, monumental sculpture, monumental painting, architecture and town planning. The above sites and remains are clearly not in equilibrium with environment. They are continuously impacted and weathered by several internal and external factors, both natural and human, with rapid and slow onset. Natural hazards are a clear example of such factors as well as long term weathering decay of rocks, until the effect of climate change, without disregarding the role of men, especially in war areas. In this context, an essential role on conservation and management of cultural properties has been identified by engineering geology and earth science in general. This approach was not very evident in the past, and now more attention to the integration of different sciences is demanded. Indeed, it is possible to affirm that the protection of the cultural heritage represents an interdisciplinary process (and not multi-disciplinary) at the border-line among art, history, science, policies for management and exploitation. In recent decades, many significant sites of cultural heritage have suffered damage, occasionally irreversible, from natural processes. This paper is presenting some case studies developed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to protect and maintain important cultural heritage sites and historic urban landscapes, mainly in Country of the world recently involved in military conflicts or requiring international assistance and cooperation due to the dimension of the disaster or the relevance of threatened monument.