Accessible Heritage
Remote trans-continental heritage support system
Long-term pollution exposure can be damaging to heritage. Yet, a number of heritage sites throughout the world appear not to systematically monitor pollution.
Global heritage environment monitoring could have a major impact on the management of heritage sites, as the recent UNESCO “Policy Document on the Impact of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties”, states that "there is presently a lack of data that is specifically relevant to understanding climate change impacts". The document further stresses the situation in countries with emerging economies where "such lack of knowledge and capacity makes it difficult to assess the loss of key values of World Heritage properties".
This interdisciplinary project aims to develop a pollution monitoring system and an associated policy framework promoting local data ownership. The system will be deployable at most heritage sites, including relatively remote ones.
From the technical point of view, the project aims at ensuring the durability of the sensors and their sensitivity to principal ambient and traffic-generated pollutants, temperature and relative humidity, which has not been achieved before in heritage monitoring. It is also important that sensor measurements, even from remote sites, are made accessible locally and on this website.
From the point of view of heritage management, some of the principal research questions of the project are about the way the data is owned, accessed and fed into partner heritage site management plans.
Latest news
- Final event seminar to be held on 23rd April. Email me to register.
- December 2012. The automatic system is deployed at the Royal Palaces of Abomey. The data is available online.
- November 15, 2012. Oral presentation at the Science and Heritage Programme Postdoctoral Seminar.
- October 2012. The automatic system is deployed at Apsley House. The data is available online.
