Abstract
With a wide spectrum of data, case studies, monitoring, and experimental and numerical simulation techniques, the multidisciplinary approach of material, environmental, and computer science applied to the conservation of cultural heritage offers several opportunities for the heritage science and conservation community to map and monitor the state of the art of the knowledge referring to natural and human-induced climate change impacts on cultural heritage—mainly constituted by the built environment—in Europe and Latin America. The special issue “Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Resources Threatened by Climate Change” of Geosciences—launched to take stock of the existing but still fragmentary knowledge on this challenge, and to enable the community to respond to the implementation of the Paris agreement—includes 10 research articles. These papers exploit a broad range of data derived from preventive conservation monitoring conducted indoors in museums, churches, historical buildings, or outdoors in archeological sites and city centers. Case studies presented in the papers focus on a well-assorted sample of decay phenomena occurring on heritage materials—e.g., surface recession and biomass accumulation on limestone, depositions of pollutant on marble, salt weathering on inorganic building materials, and weathering processes on mortars in many local- to regional-scale study areas in the Scandinavian Peninsula, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, and Panama. Besides monitoring, the methodological approaches that are showcased include, but are not limited to, original material characterization, decay product characterization, and climate and numerical modelling on material components for assessing environmental impact and climate change effects.
Highlights
Changes in preservation conditions due to climate-related decay processes are unavoidable phenomena for both movable and immovable cultural heritage (CH)
The knowledge of the mechanisms governing these processes and their real effect on changing heritage significance will allow the rational use of heritage materials, as well as the anticipation of their behavior beforehand, in order to succeed in preventive conservation, heritage management, and eventual restoration
The main objectives of this special issue are to make the point about the ongoing research in the field; to present new data, methods, and techniques that can be used by a wide community of researchers and conservators to better understand degradation phenomena affecting heritage materials, and to assess the actual and expected impact of climate change (CC); to provide guidance on conservation principles and standards to follow in order to enhance awareness on preventive conservation and long-term planned conservative interventions in the time of CC; to develop mitigation and adaptation capacity throughout the wide range of stakeholders involved, as it is urgent to respond to CC
Summary
Changes in preservation conditions due to climate-related decay processes are unavoidable phenomena for both movable and immovable cultural heritage (CH). The Council of Europe’s European Heritage Strategy for the 21st Century [2] calls for more reliable quantified information on the impact of climate change on cultural heritage, as the changing climate, speeding up the rate of degradation and the risk of loss of value, is affecting the organizations who take care of cultural heritage, resulting in difficulties in managing the maintenance of heritage buildings outdoors and the indoor environments caused by increasing costs and lack of funds As a whole, this in turn affects the cultural tourism sector, local and regional economies, their traditional practices in maintenance and conservation, as well as their use of resources and adaptation planning options. The main objectives of this special issue are to make the point about the ongoing research in the field; to present new data, methods, and techniques that can be used by a wide community of researchers and conservators to better understand degradation phenomena affecting heritage materials, and to assess the actual and expected impact of CC; to provide guidance on conservation principles and standards to follow in order to enhance awareness on preventive conservation and long-term planned conservative interventions in the time of CC; to develop mitigation and adaptation capacity throughout the wide range of stakeholders involved, as it is urgent to respond to CC
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