CH monuments are exceptionally vulnerable to CC threats; any loss/deterioration of these outstanding assets has a negative impact on local and national communities.
When governmental budget constraints limit mitigation strategies cost-effective maintenance and restoration management tools need: HERACLES project wants to fulfill these needs through the development of the HERACLES ICT PLATFORM.
Main objective was to design, validate and promote responsive systems/solutions for effective resilience of CH against CC effects, considering as a mandatory premise a holistic, multidisciplinary approach through the involvement of different expertise (end-users, industry/SMEs, scientists, conservators/restorers and social experts, decision, and policymakers).
It was pursued with the development of a system exploiting an ICT platform able to collect and integrate multi-risks, multi-source information to provide complete and updated situational awareness and support decision to end-users for innovative measurements improving CH resilience, including new solutions for maintenance and conservation ( protocols, operational procedures and new materials.
It is a flexible tool, of general applicability. The Countries object of the study are Italy and Greece, since the majority of the worldwide CH is in these two Countries, their ancient civilisations are considered world Heritage and on the base of their similar risk exposure. HERACLES focus on historical centers representing the essence of the European Countries, constituting the essence of their Culture, Identity and Economy, were people lives and works.
In Greece, the Minoan Palace of Knossos is considered the center of the first civilization of the Mediterranean basin, namely the Minoan civilization.
As well, the Koules Fortress symbolises all monuments facing the risk of CC hazards coming from the sea (sea-level rise, increasing intensity of extreme weather phenomena which combined with the air and land associated hazards and increased salinity are accelerating corrosion and deterioration of materials and structures)
In Italy, Gubbio wants to represent all the historical monumental towns in Italy and in Europe, which were conceived and built in the past following criteria when the climate conditions were very different from nowadays and that suffers at present the effects of CC, which would endanger their safeguard. Here the hydrogeological risk (heavy rains, flood, landslides) is particularly important
