Methodologies and Strategies for Cultural Heritage Protection and Conservation Against Climate Changes, Natural and Anthropic Risks

This open access book offers an overview on the intermediate results obtained in the context of the Italian National Research Programme "Cultural Heritage Active Innovation for Sustainable Society" by the Working Group "Spoke 7", which focuses its research on the development and improvement of strategies and methodologies to protect the cultural heritage against the effects of climate change and of natural and anthropic risks. Topics covered in this book include chapters on digital twins and documentation for cultural heritage as well as on monitoring, assessment, and preventive conservation of heritage. The book also examines restoration and sustainable strategies for heritage preservation and offers advice on green materials and methodologies for conservation.

The impact of climate change on cultural heritage accelerates the effects of natural hazards as well as those caused by human actions: these phenomena raise new research questions and open new challenges for modern societies, thus requiring a broad multidisciplinary approach towards problem solving. Relevant case studies will be identified with a multi-scale approach to encompass different scenarios and to address both general and specific issues to finally deliver innovative solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change, natural and anthropic risks on cultural heritage.

Fabiana Di Ciaccio holds a Ph.D. from the International Ph.D. Programme, UNESCO Chair, in Environment, Resources and Sustainable Development at the Parthenope University of Naples, where she also worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Florence (2023–present), where she teaches Remote Sensing and GIS within the Master’s Degree in Environmental Engineering. Her main research interests focus on environmental monitoring through machine and deep learning approaches, and on the documentation and preservation of cultural heritage affected by natural and anthropogenic risks and the impacts of climate change. She is the lead creator and organizer of CVEMP, International Workshop on Computer Vision for Environment Monitoring and Preservation, held in conjunction with the ICIAP Conference; MVEO, Workshop on Machine Vision for Earth Observation and Environment Monitoring, held in conjunction with the British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC); and the Special Session “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning Applications for Environmental Monitoring and Preservation”, at the IEEE Conference on Metrology for the Sea.She serves as a Guest Editor for the ISPRS Open Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, MDPI Sensors, MDPI Remote Sensing, and IET Image Processing journals, and as a reviewer for leading international conferences and journals on metrology, geomatics, and artificial intelligence for environmental applications.

Lidia Fiorini, architect. Since her academic training, her studies, research, and professional activities have been consistently focused on the surveying, documentation, and conservation of built heritage. For over fifteen years, she has collaborated with the Geomatics Laboratory for the Environment and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Florence, contributing to major research projects dedicated to the documentation and digitalization of cultural heritage in Italy and abroad. Her experience in this field has led her to reflect on the very meaning of “documentation” as applied to cultural heritage, with particular attention to the tools and methodologies that ensure its transmission, sharing, and continued development over time. She has taught as an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence. She is a member of ICOMOS and actively participates in the activities of CSN CIPA-HD, Committee for Documentation of Cultural Heritage, serving as an expert member of CIPA-HD.

Grazia Tucci, PhD in Geodetic and Topographical Sciences, is Associate Professor of Topography and Cartography at the University of Florence, Italy. She founded the Geomatics for Environment and Conservation of Cultural Heritage  (GECO) Laboratory, focused on the documentation, conservation, and enhancement of the environment and cultural heritage through innovative technologies. Coordinator of Spoke 7 "Protection and conservation of Cultural Heritage against climate changes, natural, and anthropic risks," within the Extended Partnership 5 CHANGES initiative - Cultural Heritage Active Innovation for Next-Gen Sustainable Society, funded by the PNRR. Vice President (2024-2027) of the CIPA-HD International Committee, she serves as an ICOMOS ITALY Council Member (2023-2025). She co-Chairs Working Group 11, “WG IV/11: Cultural Heritage Visualization and Virtual Restoration” (Technical Commission 4), within ISPRS (International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing).  She has undertaken pivotal roles, including scientific management for the re-production of Michelangelo's David for the Italian pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. She actively participates in scientific committees and serves on the editorial boards of various series and journals. She also contributes as a reviewer for both Italian and International Journals boasting authorship of over 250 academic publications.