Global Climate Change and its Impact on Structures of Cultural resources
Macau 6-8 May 2008-04-30
Concluding remarks and recommendations
Acknowledging that:
1) There are concerns about the impact of climate change and its impact on structure
of cultural heritage.
2) The science of assessing impact of climate change on historic structure is at an
early stage of development.
3) There are still considerable amount of uncertainties relative to the impact of these
changes on built environment.
4) Cultural resources have a wide variety of resilience and sensitivity to the impact
of climate change.
5) Impact can be happening as a day-today weathering process or as a catastrophic
event such as windstorm, flood, or fire.
6) Major research program such as EU 6th Framework programme research project
on Global Climate Change Impacts on the Built Heritage and Cultural Landscapes
have recently provided Climate Change Vulnerability Atlas for Europe and
Guidelines; these studies have identified significant risk to cultural resources.
7) The World Heritage has adopted at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in
October 2007 a Policy document on the Impact of Climate Change on World
Heritage Properties.
8) The World Heritage policy cited above recognised the EU 6th research program
cited above “can be a model for other regions of the world” ( Section III,B)
9) The World Heritage Policy cited above is “deeply concerned about the adverse
impacts which climate change is having or may have on the Outstanding
Universal Value (OUV), integrity and authenticity of World Heritage properties”
(section 1)
10) The World Heritage Policy cited above is principally aiming at providing the
World Heritage decision/policy-makers with guidance on some issues such as
synergies and research needs
11) The World Heritage Policy is seeking synergies: “knowledge creation through
networking for research, information sharing, exchange of best practice, education
and training, awareness raising, and capacity building between the World
Heritage Convention and other Conventions, international bodies, universities,
research institutions, the private sector, NGOs, and other relevant programmes
working on climate change issues”(section II.A)
12) The World Heritage Policy cited above allows for World Heritage properties to
“serve as laboratories where monitoring, mitigation and adaptation processes can
be applied, tested and improved” and that these properties “can partner with
relevant organisation in field activities on mitigation and adaptation strategies,
methodologies, tools and/or pilot projects”, and that “The World Heritage Centre
and the Advisory bodies will lead and coordinate in the collection and wide
dissemination of lessons learned and best practice developed through such
partnerships.”
13) ICOMOS and its scientific committees such as ISCARSAH are among the
Advisory Bodies ( WHC Operational Guidelines)
14) The first World Conference on Climate Change and its impact on Structure of
Cultural Heritage held in Macau on May 6-8 2008 has demonstrated that CC can
have a significant impact on cultural resources in the short and in the long term. It
is not always possible to link the catastrophic events or evidence of deterioration
of cultural heritage directly to GCC. Yet some cases have presented some
compelling and convincing evidence of the effect of GCC on cultural resources.
15) The World Heritage policy acknowledges that: “There is presently a lack of data
that is specifically relevant to understandingGCC impacts on World Heritage
properties, particularly cultural properties”
16) The ICOMOS workshop on GCC in Pretoria has indicated on the subject of
Structural Stability: The principles of assessment, diagnosis and treatment of
historic structures are largely unaffected by climate change; decay and
deterioration phenomenon arising from climate change are reasonably well
understood. What will change is the vulnerability of particular structures (due to
climate change) to different kinds of problems from the ones they were originally
designed to cope with. Examples include timber structures that become
vulnerable to termite attack owing to migration of wood-eating insect species;
movement of lower level biological growths to follow their ecological niches; and
new settlements of structural foundations as the permafrost melts, and clayey soils
become wetted or dry out.
17) Research program should have practical applications to add value to the
safeguarding of cultural resources
In this context the following recommendations are offered for further ICOMOS activities:
1) Work in collaboration with IPCC: Cubasch in Berlin has agreed to work with us
2) Seek funding opportunities to initiate pilot project on site, World Heritage
properties being a first preference
3) Should we follow with a second conference on GCC, preferably in 2010, in a
location that has experience tangible evidence of the impact of CC on structure of
cultural heritage
4) Develop a web-based mapping project on observed climate change impacts
5) What guidelines exist that may be helpful but are not well disseminated
(ICOMOS Guidelines)?
6) Training scenario of technical adaptive strategies for GCC
7) Promote committee in new regions and develop constituents
8) Promote the Principles and Guidelines
9) Link with the EU Framework Program and seek opportunities for collaboration at
the international level to leverage the European expertise and add-value to similar
initiative in the other parts of the World
10) Link with IUCN and UNEP to gather as much data as possible and to develop
strategies for collaboration between nature and cultural heritage conservation
efforts
11) Link with organization of Climate Change and Built Environment and encourage
the development of collaborative research effort, in particular for modern heritage
12) Disseminate the results of research through the chain of UNESCO Chairs and
UniTwin Program in order to find end users to apply the research results
13) Link with WH Secretariate and provide advice in the capacity of Advisory Bodies
14)
ISCARSAH recommends with respect to heritage structures and GCC the following
particular actions and preventive management strategies:
- maintain heritage structure in good state of repair
- ensure sufficient water-tightness of the building envelop
- if uncertain about the loading capacity of the roof, and exposed to increased snow
load, make arrangement for snow removal and or proceed with structural
assessment and possible structural repairs and upgrading
- do not allow ice-dam formation whenever possible
- where significant increase in temperature is expected monitor evidence of
excessive thermal stresses
- where wind loading are on the increase ensure positive connection between the
roof and the walls structure
- for timber structure be on the outlook for new insect infestations;
- when implementing a conservation project on a heritage structure, consider
strategic and judicious minimal reinforcement to accommodate potential increase
in snow, wind or rainfall loads.
- Where appropriate and necessary consider the installation of gutter to drain the
roof runoff, to minimize the damage caused by wind-driven rain on wall
materials, particularly if the walls have already loss part of the their structural
integrity
- Site drainage…
- Foundations…
- Structure located on permafrost prone to thawing
- Secure the services of expert conservation professionals to make appropriate
decisions
- Protect heritage values and heritage character defining elements
- Implement monitoring program for key parameters
- Authorities in respective countries outside the EU should undertake the
development of vunerability assessment maps for a number of key factors ( see
table of contents of Vulnerability Atlas)
-
o Wind
o Wet-frost
o Wind-driven rain
o Temperature increase (anomalies – shade and sun exposure)
o Etc..
o ..
Evaluation based on satisfactory past performance as described in ISO 13822 be
used strategically, assessing the uncertainties related to potential climate change
factors, with reference to ….. More to say in the future on this important liaison
with ISO 13822