ERA4CH · Earthquake Risk plAtform For european cities Cultural Heritage protection

The seismic movements of the ground have a strong impact on the structural stability of the Cultural Heritage very often characterized by old construction methods and materials but still with a consistent density of population. To have an idea of the dimension of the phenomena, the damage on the CH asset declared by the Italian Ministry of CH, caused by the recent earthquakes in Centre Italy, has been assessed in 2 Billion Euro plus the death toll caused by the collapse of several buildings. Authorities responsible for the preservation of CH to the future generations are well aware of the huge costs required by rehabilitation intervention compared to preventive ones. Risk information becomes fundamental to reduce the vulnerability of heritage and to minimise the economic losses, helping disaster managers and cultural heritage professionals to design mitigation measures, set priorities and invest in resilient cultural heritage to mitigate the restoration costs and the death toll.The project ERA4CH addresses the development of a series of tool, combining Artificial Intelligence with structural stability models, advanced remote sensing techniques, image processing, geotechnics and cadastral data sets in a GIS application for damage assessment and long-term monitoring of historic centres. This innovative methodology and tools will enable effective monitoring and management of the historic centres to mitigate the effects of the catastrophic events by enabling preventive intervention in the areas where the majority of the damage is expected. Three representative test cases are proposed: the historic city of Narni (Italy), candidate to the UNESCO site list, the historical centre of Chania (Crete, Greece) and Strovolos (Nicosia, Cyprus).