Cultural HEritagE. Risks and Securing activities
The Alps host an outstanding variety of material and immaterial cultural heritage which are the grounds of Alpine peoples identity and strongly contribute to the local economies. Natural disasters, affecting the Alpine territory and prone to be exacerbated by the climate change, represent a major threat to cultural heritage, in terms of asset safety and fruition. Risk assessment and disaster reduction & management have drawn a growing attention by policy makers at EU and Alpine level mainly focusing on the protection of human lives and infrastructures. Yet, the safeguard of cultural heritage from natural hazards has not been properly tackled. Alpine local communities often lack appropriate regulatory settings, know-how and operational capacities to manage securing activities of their cultural resources. The project focus on this gap and aims at supporting relevant transnational and local organizations in the valorization of cultural heritage by (A) promoting new national and transnational governance and intervention schemes involving the main actors engaged in the management and protection of cultural heritage and (B) providing innovative approaches and tools to secure and salvage cultural assets affected by natural risks. These goals will be achieved through: 1) building the knowledge base for identifying and valorising the cultural heritage stock at risk; 2) defining reference conservation/securing approaches, techniques and training for Civil Protection Operators; 3) developing new models of emergency planning to protect cultural heritage, built on shared pilot experience and transferable at transnational level; 4) capitalizing innovation technologies for effective and more comprehensive DDR and climate change adaptation policies. The project is consistent and cooperative with the ongoing EU policies, the EUSALP Action Plan and the Alpine Convention strategies in the field of valorization of cultural resources and their protection from natural risks.