Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Resources Threatened by Climate Change

With its wide spectrum of data, case studies, monitoring, and experimental and numerical simulation techniques, the multidisciplinary approach of material, environmental, and computer science applied to the conservation of cultural heritage offers several opportunities for the heritage science and conservation community to map and monitor state-of-the-art knowledge on natural and human-induced climate change impacts on cultural heritage—mainly constituted by the built environment—in Europe and Latin America. Geosciences’ Special Issue titled “Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Resources Threatened by Climate Change” was launched to take stock of the existing but still fragmentary knowledge on this challenge, and to enable the community to respond to the implementation of the Paris agreement. These 10 papers exploit a broad range of data derived from preventive conservation monitoring conducted indoors in museums, churches, historical buildings, or outdoors in archeological sites and city centers. Case studies presented in the papers focus on a well-assorted sample of decay phenomena occurring on heritage materials (e.g., surface recession and biomass accumulation on limestone, depositions of pollutant on marble, salt weathering on inorganic building materials, and weathering processes on mortars in many local- to regional-scale study areas in the Scandinavian Peninsula, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, and Panama). Besides monitoring, the methodological approaches showcased include, but are not limited to, original material characterization, decay product characterization, and climate and numerical modelling on material components for assessing environmental impact and climate change effects

Monument Monitor: using citizen science to preserve heritage

This research demonstrates how data collected by citizen scientists can act as a valuable resource for heritage managers. It establishes to what extent visitors’ photographs can be used to assist in aspects of condition monitoring focusing on biological and plant growth, erosion, stone/mortar movement, water ingress/pooling and antisocial behaviour. This thesis describes the methodology and outcomes of Monument Monitor (MM), a project set up in collaboration with Historic Environment Scotland (HES) that requested visitors at selected Scottish heritage sites to submit photographs of their visit. Across twenty case study sites participants were asked to record evidence of a variety of conservation issues. Patterns of contributions to the project are presented alongside key stakeholder feedback, which show how MM was received and where data collection excelled. Alongside this, the software built to manage and sort submissions is presented as a scalable methodology for the collection of citizen generated data of heritage sites. To demonstrate the applicability of citizen generated data for in depth monitoring and analysis, an environmental model is created using the submissions from one case study which predicts the effect of the changing climate at the site between 1980 - 2080. Machine Learning (ML) is used to analyse submitted data in both classification and segmentation tasks. This application demonstrates the validity of utilising ML tools to assist in the analysis and categorising of volunteer submitted photographs. The outcome of this PhD is a scalable methodology with which conservation staff can use visitor submitted images as an evidence-base to support them in the management of heritage sites

Urban Ecosystem Services and Tourism

Urban tourism depends on the place specific qualities of destinations. In many cities, climate change poses a threat to these qualities, through increasing risk of excessive heat, draught and flooding. Cities need to adapt to reduce these risks. One way of doing this is to improve their green infrastructure. Urban forests, parks, rivers and wetlands may help reduce the effects of climate change in cities. At the same time, green infrastructure provide a variety of ecosystem services to the community. In particular, cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, andesthetical values take place in urban green infrastructure; they provide value in the form of improved experiences. These mainly benefit the locals but they may also be important for tourism. Such relations between ecosystem services and tourism have in earlier literature been recognized in rural contexts but very seldom in urban. This paper reports preliminary findings from qualitative case studies in the South of Sweden and Berlin, Germany. They focus on how urban planning projects (primarily aimed at mitigating GHG emissions and adapting to climatechange) can be extended to develop places where experience values for both residents and visitors are created alongside other kinds of ecosystem services. We suggest that the need for climate change adaptation in a city may be used as a means to improve its place specific qualities as a tourist destination. By developing green infrastructure in innovative and environmentally friendly ways, the quality of ecosystem services improves, including those relevant for both visitors and residents. Protecting and building green infrastructure, therebyenhancing a city´s visible qualities and its reputation as a sustainable destination, may also be valuable in marketing the city

Full Proceedings, 2018

Full conference proceedings for the 2018 International Building Physics Association Conference hosted at Syracuse University

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2022, which was held during April 2-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 46 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 159 submissions. The proceedings also contain 16 tool papers of the affiliated competition SV-Comp and 1 paper consisting of the competition report. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers, and users interested in rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference aims to bridge the gaps between different communities with this common interest and to support them in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, exibility, and efficiency of tools and algorithms for building computer-controlled systems

African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation

This open access book discusses current thinking and presents the main issues and challenges associated with climate change in Africa. It introduces evidences from studies and projects which show how climate change adaptation is being - and may continue to be successfully implemented in African countries. Thanks to its scope and wide range of themes surrounding climate change, the ambition is that this book will be a lead publication on the topic, which may be regularly updated and hence capture further works. Climate change is a major global challenge. However, some geographical regions are more severly affected than others. One of these regions is the African continent. Due to a combination of unfavourable socio-economic and meteorological conditions, African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. The recently released IPCC special report "Global Warming of 1.5º C" outlines the fact that keeping global warming by the level of 1.5º C is possible, but also suggested that an increase by 2º C could lead to crises with crops (agriculture fed by rain could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020) and livestock production, could damage water supplies and pose an additonal threat to coastal areas. The 5th Assessment Report produced by IPCC predicts that wheat may disappear from Africa by 2080, and that maize— a staple—will fall significantly in southern Africa. Also, arid and semi-arid lands are likely to increase by up to 8%, with severe ramifications for livelihoods, poverty eradication and meeting the SDGs. Pursuing appropriate adaptation strategies is thus vital, in order to address the current and future challenges posed by a changing climate. It is against this background that the "African Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation" is being published. It contains papers prepared by scholars, representatives from social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in Africa, and working with communities across the African continent. Encompassing over 100 contribtions from across Africa, it is the most comprehensive publication on climate change adaptation in Africa ever produced

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2022, which was held during April 2-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 46 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 159 submissions. The proceedings also contain 16 tool papers of the affiliated competition SV-Comp and 1 paper consisting of the competition report. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers, and users interested in rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference aims to bridge the gaps between different communities with this common interest and to support them in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, exibility, and efficiency of tools and algorithms for building computer-controlled systems