Challenges in recording disaster damage and loss data for cultural heritage

• Autor(a) principal: Xavier Romão
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Esmeralda Paupério
• Tipo de documento: Livro
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/handle/10216/84515
• topic: Engenharia estrutural, Engenharia civil; Structural engineering, Civil engineering

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) upholds the development andimplementation of measures to reduce hazard exposure and vulnerability to disasters. Among other aspects,the SFDRR recognizes the importance of cultural heritage and its irreplaceable value for society, thusemphasising the need to assess the impact that potential hazards may have on the built cultural heritage.Developing adequate risk assessment and management processes are fundamental towards this end and itis known that systematically collected and robust disaster damage and loss data are essential for suchprocesses. Thus, the development of systems, models and methodologies to collect and handle such data areseen to be a current worldwide priority.In this context, the proposed paper presents a database framework for the worldwide collection ofimmovable cultural heritage disaster loss data currently being developed by ICOMOS/ICORP with the supportof other organisations, namely the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal. The conceptsand technical aspects related to the data being collected and its structured organisation are discussed, aswell as the type and format of the indicators being recorded. Furthermore, challenges and obstaclesregarding the possibility of collecting cultural heritage disaster loss data are discussed as well as its benefitsfor the development of more rational disaster risk management approaches for cultural heritage. Amongother features of the database framework, a possible indicator to estimate economic losses representing theloss in value of cultural heritage properties due to damage caused by hazardous events is also discussed. Thisindicator estimates the loss in value of cultural heritage properties as a function of the (physical) damagethey suffered and of the positive estimated economic impact that cultural heritage has in a given country.Details of this estimator are provided along with its potential applications within the SFDRR.