Developing a novel Climate change Risk Assessment Framework for cultural heritage in Turkey (CRAFT)

Turkey is one of the most archaeologically and culturally rich places in the World with 18 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and an additional 78 locations in the tentative list. Flooding and landslides are one of the most destructive types of natural disaster in Turkey. Flood impacts in Turkey are felt severely in major cities of the country. Istanbul (the largest city of Turkey with 15 million inhabitants) and its UNESCO World Heritage historical areas have recently suffered from frequent floods as a result of intense rainfalls under a changing climate. The severe floods of August-September 2009 in the Marmara region of Turkey were categorised as an event greater than the 500-year return period. These floods caused 31 human losses, affected 35,000 people, and led to significant damages in major urban cities, particularly in Istanbul, with an economic loss more than $100 million. Many parts of the old city centre (Historic Peninsula) of Istanbul were flooded. The Historic peninsula had also suffered from several major floods in December 2010, July 2017, February 2018 and August 2019. Heavy rains cause flooding events more frequently in recent years than in the past. The deadly 2019 floods, rainfall-triggered landslides, and the subsequent moisture problems have resulted in significant structural damages to cultural heritage; in particular Small HagiaSofia and Ahi Çelebi Mosque (which was at that time in a restoration process).

Our proposed research will involve susceptibility mapping of cultural heritage to climate-change driven hazards, with a particular focus on the floods and landslides hazards on Istanbul's world heritage sites. The mapping, based on a risk assessment framework, will then be used to develop a response policy. In developing risk assessment frameworks, it is the normal presumption that "heritage assets are irreplaceable and that heritage is a 'non-renewable resource' ". However, the risk assessment framework to be developed within this project will need to recognise the inevitability and potential of loss. We will recognise the inevitability of loss, where the impacts of climate and environmental change may lead to the conclusion that conservation and perpetuation of some monuments are unsustainable. The potential of loss could imply that, where monuments have been damaged by landslides and floods, in addition to the option of reconstructing the heritage to its pre-disaster condition, we should consider a new form of the heritage, where the history of disaster is reflected in the modified monument.