‘Climate for Culture’s decision support tool

Background

Coordinated by Fraunhofer (IBP, MOEZ and ISC), and involving 27 partners, the CLIMATE FOR CULTURE project (2009-2014) estimates the impacts of changing climate conditions on historic buildings and their vast collections in Europe and the Mediterranean. By assessing the risk of damage to threatened cultural heritage sites, the project aimed to encourage the development of strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change, including through policy makers and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports. Furthermore, the project provided insight into the possible socio-economic impacts of climate change, given the importance of cultural heritage to Europe’s economy.

The project came up with a methodology for risk assessment based on a step-wise approach that includes the following consecutive steps: climate change simulations, building simulations, indoor climate monitoring, damage assessment from objects and prediction of future risks.

The project has produced a set of models and tools to identify the most urgent risks for specific regions, including a Decision-Making Support System “”DMSS”” and the software Digit Chart The DMSS is a synthesis of the results of several work packages, consisting of a software module for constant evaluation of climate data using existing damage data, and allows the prediction of indoor climate change based on the simulation of outdoor climate change. The software Digit Chart allows the transformation of analogue maps into digital format, to facilitate its reading and analysis.