Preliminary Risk Assessment at the Petra Archaeological Park Recording Strategy

Abstract

This paper describes the activities carried out in Petra by an international and multidisciplinary group of graduate students specializing in heritage conservation from the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC), University of Leuven (Belgium) in cooperation with the University of Jordan, Faculty of Architecture, the Al Hussein Bin Talal University and in partnership with the UNESCO Office in Amman. The main objective of the work was to carry out a preliminary assessment of the risks affecting the integrity of the Petra World Heritage Property, due to both natural and man-made events so to understand the impact of the site's major threats. The outcomes provided the foundations necessary to develop a risk management plan, which should be integrated in the development of a comprehensive management plan for the site. The result of the overall study has been a preliminary risk management recommendation achieved through a rapid risk assessment of specific areas within the property, which readily identified vulnerabilities and threats to the state of conservation of the PAP. Outcomes of this work comprise two movies using time-lapse photography, 25 geo-referenced panoramas, a GIS system showing GPS track logs for all trails, satellite imagery and location of facilities, signage, monuments, 395 geo-referenced photos for the trails assessment, 105 geo-referenced photos for the areas assessment. An easy way to understand and visualize the circulation in the PAP was to bring the different trails on a satellite image through the use of a GPS system, combined with the ArcGIS software, in order to create a live track log while walking the trails in the PAP. Tracing this track log later in the GIS software indicated the actual location of parts of the PAP circulation and proved a very useful tool to retrieve the paths and areas analyzed.