HOW ARE HEAT WAVES PUTTING AT RISK HISTORIC URBAN AREAS? FIRST STEPS FOR DEVELOPING RISK ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGIES
- Authors:
- Laura Quesada-Ganuza, Leire Garmendia, Eduardo Rojí, Irantzu Álvarez, Estibaliz Briz, Alessandra Gandini
- Year:
- 2022
- Communication in congress:
- REHABEND Construction Pathology, Rehabilitation Technology and Heritage Management
- Initial page - Ending page:
- 1114 - 1121
- ISBN/ISSN:
- 978-84-09-42252-4 (Print) / 978-84-09-42253-1 (Digital)
- Description:
-
<b>ABSTRACT</b></br>
It is worldwide accepted that climate change is affecting cities and that the conservation of the
cultural heritage contributes to sustainable development. However, despite the high level of interest
and research in climate-change risks, a holistic understanding of the risk that heat waves and heat
urban island phenomena present to urban cultural heritage is noticeably absent from literature.
Aside from understanding the impacts that heritage faces with climate change, the consideration of
loss of heritage and cultural values and assets due to extreme heat waves will promote the resilience
and sustainability of both social and built environmental systems.
The aim of this paper is double, first to identify key performance indicators for risk assessment
methodologies that address both the elements of historic urban areas as a system and the potential
impact of prolonged heat waves. Second, this study aims at developing a categorization for both
buildings and urban spaces within historic urban areas regarding their vulnerability to heat waves,
which will be the basis for further risk assessment. For this twofold purpose, the interaction between
urban spaces, heat waves, and the urban heat island is addressed as well as the vulnerability and
behaviour of traditional materials and building typologies.
To define the elements that conform historic urban areas, the system is addressed from two
perspectives, as an urban system, and as a historic area. At the same time, for a holistic approach,
every element of the system is assessed, distinguishing between socio-economic, cultural,
governance (services and resources) and physical (gathering tangible characteristics of all
infrastructures, elements and buildings) aspects. The indicators and categorization are, therefore,
essential for the evaluation of the impacts of heat waves and the urban heat island on the elements
that conform the system of the historic urban area.
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<b>ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</b></br>
The authors wish to acknowledge funding from the European Commission through the SHELTER project (GA 821282), as well as the support of the <b>SAREN</b> research group (IT1619-22, Basque Government) .