PROTHEGO: PROTection of European Cultural HEritage from GeO - hazards

Tangible cultural heritage includes various categories of monuments and sites, from cultural landscapes and sacred sites to archaeological complexes, individual architectural or artistic monuments and historic urban centres.
Such places are continuously impacted and weathered by several internal and external factors, both natural and human-induced, with rapid and/or slow onset, including natural hazards, such as earthquakes or extreme meteorological events, cumulative processes as well as the effects of humans, especially in conflict situations.
A clear picture of endangered sites is not available; UNESCO, WMF and ICOMOS are providing useful information but only on a limited portion of heritage. In particular, the list of List of World Heritage in danger in accordance with Article 11 of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage mainly focuses on sites threaten by armed conflicts (e.g., Medieval monuments in Kosovo), or uncontrolled development (e.g., Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City, and the Dresden Elbe valley, recently delisted from the UNESCO World Heritage).
New space technology based on radar interferometry (InSAR) is now capable to monitor, since 1992 and with mm precision, surface deformation for reflective targets named persistent scatterers, which consistently return stable signals to the radar satellites.
Led by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, and in collaboration with NERC British Geological Survey, Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, University of Milano-Bicocca and Cyprus University of Technology, the project PROTHEGO will make an innovative contribution towards the analysis of geohazards in areas of cultural heritage in Europe.
The project will apply novel InSAR techniques to monitor monuments and sites that are potentially unstable due to landslides, sinkholes, settlement, subsidence, active tectonics as well as structural deformation, all of which could be effected of climate change and human interaction.
To magnify the impact of the project, the approach will be implemented in more than 450 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List in geographical Europe.
After the remote sensing investigation, detailed geological interpretation, hazard analysis, local-scale monitoring, advanced modelling and field surveying for the most critical sites will be carried out to discover cause and extent of the observed motions.
Active engagement of stakeholders from both academic and heritage conservation sectors will be undertaken via establishment of the Steering Committee and Demonstration Site Stakeholders.
PROTHEGO will enhance Cultural Heritage management at National level, reinforcing institutional support and governance through knowledge and innovation, identifying, assessing and monitoring risks, strengthening disaster preparedness at heritage properties in the future.

PROTHEGO will provide a new remote sensing tool and a new methodological approach, for the safety management of cultural heritage, at low cost and covering monuments and sites located in Europe.
The project will promote interdisciplinary and collaborative R&D activities, transferring the highest level of knowledge, quality and standards from space and earth sciences to cultural heritage conservation sciences.
The idea behind the project is to bring together the different actors in the field of protection of cultural heritage in risky areas (conservators, restorers, architects, archaeologists, engineers, geologists) through an approach that is as much as possible interdisciplinary, by defining a new paradigm of sustainable management and conservation that acts as a catalyst for economic growth of European countries.
The research methodology will be focused on: long term monitoring systems (with low impact); indirect analysis of environmental contexts, investigating changes and decay of structure, material and landscape.
The tools developed during the project (e.g. GIS platform, project web sites, European Hazards database assessment, Guidelines, best practices) will be useful to policy makers (public and private) in the field of cultural heritage to inform decision making based on the integrated risk assessment.
The outcomes of PROTHEGO will support correct planning and rebalancing the contrast between endogenous (structural and materials decay, the societal development, the anthropogenic pressure) and surrounding exogenous forces (natural hazards acting on the heritage) which affecting the European cultural heritage.
The project methodology will be designed to be easily exported and used by not only the research community, but also policy makers, businesses and commercial enterprises and practitioners from the heritage sector. New business opportunities will arise in relation to the sustainable management, exploitation and conservation of cultural heritage.
An example of potential impact is the collaboration of UNESCO within PROTHEGO. The Focal Point for Climate Change and Natural Hazard will join the Steering Committee and contribute to finalising project outputs with a view to their exploitation within the activities of UNESCO. More widely, the impact will be guaranteed by regular involvement and engagement of key Stakeholders from both academia and private and public heritage conservation and preservation sectors in the activities of the project. Stakeholders will be involved as part of the Steering Committee (Associate Partners directly involved in the implementation of the activities), Stakeholders' Group (public and private sector Associate Partners primarily interested in the exploitation of the methodologies and outputs of the project) and Demonstration Site Stakeholders (a subset of the Stakeholders' Group, playing crucial role for the calibration of the methodology to site specific scale for the four demonstration sites).