PROCULTHER Project. Key Elements of a European Methodology to Address the Protection of Cultural Heritage during Emergencies

This methodology, relying on a common and shared understanding of the subject at European level, aims at providing key operational and technical elements to address cultural heritage at risk of disaster, offering an overview of the main actions that should be taken into particular account to advance preparedness and response activities for the inclusion of cultural heritage safeguard in disaster risk management processes at both national and European level.
Many structural, technical and operational aspects on how to enhance the protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster at each territorial level have been explored in order to produce a document which concisely points out the elements that are crucial in disaster risk management operations: from the existing institutional framework to the inclusion of cultural heritage in planning processes, from the needed coordination structure and supporting team to the tools and data management system in support of the experts deployed on the field, as well as training sessions and exercises focused on the protection of cultural heritage at risk. In order to provide for specific references and further analysis, the document also reports ten case studies on the practices already developed by the PROCULTHER project partners in terms of institutional framework, planning, coordinated structure and teams.
Finally, it concludes the actions to be undertaken to achieve an effective protection of cultural heritage at risk of disaster. The Methodology is available also in French via the PROCULTHER-NET Project webpage.
KEYWORDS: cultural heritage/ methodology / protection / preparedness / resilience / capacity building