This book brings together a total of six papers in an interdisciplinary way at the border of natural disasters and cultural heritage. There is a need for studying and documenting cultural heritage in Arctic landscapes, as these are the most affected by climate change. Remote sensing represents a powerful tool in the monitoring, management and safeguarding of cultural heritage. Sites included in the UNESCO World Heritage List should receive more attention from both geoscientists and social scientists. Urbanization has a short- and long-lasting effect on the conservation of cultural heritage.

Protecting Historic Architecture and Museum Collections from Natural Disasters serves as a useful guide for professionals engaged in the preservation of cultural heritage, whether structures or artifacts. This book discusses how to prevent losses to the cultural heritage of structures and artifacts through more knowledgeable protection, prevention, and emergency response. Organized into six sections encompassing 26 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the mechanisms for preserving and protecting the heritage. This text then examines the threats of destruction by the natural elements such as decay, air pollution, subsidence, and other forms of attrition. Other chapters consider the social functional and economic values of the buildings and museum objects. This book discusses as well the natural disaster policies within a society. The final chapter deals with the enlistment of the private sector in dealing with catastrophes rising out of fire, earthquake, flood, and other natural disasters. This book is a valuable resource for conservation specialists, archivists, private collectors, dealers, curators, and librarians.

Considerations of the effect of trauma on heritage sites.

Risk-preparedness is a critical part of a wiser use of our cultural environments. Risk analysis and mitigation ensure better use of scarce resources and optimal conditions for extending the life of cultural property. A cultural-heritage-at-risk framework offers those concerned with the conservation of the built environment the chance to fully root their efforts in a concern for the preventive for the first time in the history of the movement.

With its 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 state-of-the-art knowledge on natural and human-induced climate change impacts on cultural heritage—mainly constituted by the built environment—in Europe and Latin America. Geosciences’ Special Issue titled “Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Resources Threatened by Climate Change” was 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. These 10 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 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.

The volume takes a look at how impacts of climate change on cultural heritage and cultural diversity may challenge sustainable global peace. While the importance of the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts becomes recognized, the role of cultural policy as a reconciliatory, proactive element of sustainable peace has been underestimated.

Strengthening Disaster Risk Governance to Manage Disaster Risk presents the second principle from the UNISDR Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015-2030. The framework includes discussion of risk and resilience from both a theoretical and governance perspective in light of the ideas that are shaping our common future and presents innovative tools and best practices in reducing risk and building resilience. Combining the applications of social, financial, technological, design, engineering and nature-based approaches, the volume addresses rising global priorities and focuses on strengthening the global understanding of risk governance practices, initiatives and trends. Focusing on disaster risk governance at the national, regional, and global levels, it presents both historic and contemporary issues, asking researchers and governments how they can use technological advances, risk and resilience metrics and modeling, business continuity practices, and past experiences to understand the disaster recovery process and manage risk. - Follows the global frameworks for disaster risk reduction and sustainability, specifically the UNISDR Sendai Framework for DRR, 2015-2030 - Addresses lessons learned and future paths in disaster risk governance models - Integrates public and private interests in risk governance - Presents methodologies dealing with risk uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity