Protecting the cultural heritage fromn water-soil interaction related threats: an integrated project

The paper aims to outline an integrated approach to the protection of cultural heritage from water-soil related threats, whose suitability will be analyzed within the research project PERICLES (acronym of “Protecting the Cultural Heritage from water-soil interaction related threats) financed the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) through the PRIN 2015 program, that will involve a multidisciplinary research team for the next three year. Considering that Italy is exposed to several natural (i.e. strong earthquakes, floods and catastrophic landslides, etc.) and human-induced (such as subsidence) hazards, and among those new challenges are posed by climate changes, safeguarding the Cultural Heritage (CH) against the increasing intensity of water-soil interaction related threats, is an urgent need for this non-renewable assets. In this perspective, this project will develop a novel and consistent strategy for the risk assessment and mitigation of CH exposed to such hazards and will identify priorities and valorisation actions for specific assets. The achievement of consistent results is fostered by the multi-disciplinary, multi-risk and multi-scale setting of the project. The pursued integrated approach, thanks to the involvement of stakeholders and end-users, will allow to simply pass from theory to practice and will enhance the synergy among technicians, stakeholders and decision makers.