STORM Policies and Recommendations – a new vision for authorities, first responders and civil protection towards an effective protection of cultural heritage.

Abstract

Every year, cultural heritage all over the world is lost or damaged under the devastating impact of climate change and natural hazards. Many times these damages are irreversible and often result from insufficient and disjointed preparedness systems, unable to cope with these threats. Awareness of this situation and the urgent need to find solutions for it has been a motivational call to taking actions towards the raising of consciousness of all involved, the incentive to training and the sharing of good practices. Project STORM -Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Technical and Organisational Resources Management (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme – H2020-DRS-11-2015: Disaster Resilience & Climate), introduced a new vision for authorities, first responders and civil protection services towards cultural heritage, by proposing new policies and recommendations. This new paradigm based on the STORM experience sets the way towards the implementation of an overtly risk-oriented approach to the preservation of heritage sites, following the objectives that guided the STORM project through the development of new operative proposal – STORM 5 Cs – for different levels of intervention and responsibilities, namely: Heritage Conservation and management guidelines and procedures at site and government levels; Communication between climate researchers and heritage managers, including government authorities, in particular concerning the scientific body of knowledge built on climate change, aiming to improve adaptation strategies; Coping and adaptive capacities of heritage sites and organisations to meet their specific risks, and namely the actions that may enhance their resilience facing disasters; Cooperation between the different actors involved in the disaster risk management (DRM) of cultural heritage, which is demonstrably a cross-sectorial endeavour; Capacity building of heritage professionals, as well as of other pertinent stakeholders, via training and education at diverse levels in site-specific DRM measures and climate change adaptation. Regarding the safeguarding policies for cultural heritage to face natural hazards, STORM recommends the adoption of disaster reduction policies that lead to the creation of effective natural disaster reduction, i.e., the adoption of a new pathway that takes us from safeguard to effective protection of cultural heritage.