A cultural heritage risk index: the STORM Project perspective

This chapter presents an integrated risk assessment and management methodology for cultural heritage sites encountering the adverse effects of natural hazards and climate change-related events. A Cultural Heritage Risk Index was developed within the context of the EU-STORM (Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Technical and Organisational Resources Management) project to adequately incorporate the risk components for analysing the vulnerability and risk levels. The proposed methodology was applied to five heritage sites including, the Historical Centre of Rethymno in Greece, the Mellor Heritage Project in the UK, the Roman Ruins of Tróia in Portugal, the Baths of Diocletian in Italy, and the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey. Risk assessment output facilitates the decision-making process to understand which site elements need treatment strategies and at which level. Accordingly, risk treatment strategies were determined, such as avoiding or reducing hazards, reducing structural susceptibility, and building coping and adaptive capacities. A user-friendly risk management tool was implemented as a web interface served from STORM’s main platform to assist the domain experts and site managers. The methodology and related tools provide the sites with hazard- and site-specific strategies to mitigate the risks.