Cultural heritage protection against flooding

The CHEF initiative aims at preventing moveable and immoveable cultural heritage from damage caused by flooding. Risk assessment and emergency measures as well as damage evaluation and restoration and repair techniques are considered in the frame of the project.

The European Community has suffered from disastrous floods in recent years, which caused enormous damage and left hundreds of people dead in several European countries. The flooding occurred across regional borders and involved neighbouring states along the rivers Elbe (2002), Odra (1997), Rhine (1993 and 1995) and many more. The economic losses were extremely high and affected not only local regions but also the whole European Community. Europe has to face further flood catastrophes due to the change of climate and due to further building activities in flood-prone regions.

CHEF proposes the integration of multidisciplinary research as scientific support to European policies. In this frame cost efficient tools for the development of new and innovative strategies will be provided. For avoiding or mitigating flood-related damage of cultural heritage, a multitude of aspects has to be considered, like historic significance and context of the object, building structure and its location in risk areas. But also technical problems like the lack of documentation, unspecified structural condition and assembly, unknown material characteristics and parameters of exposure require intense investigations.

Project duration: 2007 - 2009

CHEF

further information