Accessible Heritage

Accessible Heritage (2017) created wireless networks of long-life remote environmental monitoring devices on international heritage sites, and a policy framework promoting local data ownership.

From the technical point of view, the project aimed to ensure the durability of sensor arrays and their sensitivity to principal ambient pollutants, temperature and relative humidity, which had not been achieved before in heritage monitoring. From the point of view of heritage management, one of the principal innovations of the project was the way how data are owned, accessed and fed into heritage site management plans.

The project was split into the following tasks:

Literature review: A review of publications related to sensor technology, wireless sensor network deployments and policy standards and enforcement guidelines in heritage management.

Data curation: In close collaboration with English Heritage's World Heritage and International Policy Office, a review of international policies regulating access to data at the level of national world heritage sites. This included research into how the environmental data would support the conservation plans of world heritage sites.

Prototype monitoring platform: Integration into a single platform of the diverse commercially available hardware components was necessary to the functioning of the monitoring device.

Sensor array: Integration of sensors to enable sensing of pollutants and environmental parameters. Calibration of the array involved subjecting the sensor array to a number of combinations of pollutants.

Project website: This was a platform for communication and exchange of information, but also a platform for data visualisation and analysis.

Case studies: The developed monitoring tool was deployed on participating case study heritage sites in UK and abroad. This task also included pilot training of local heritage managers. An example of case study site is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Royal Palaces of Abomey.

Project partners

The research was led by UCL ISH with English Heritage as a project partner, and ran from June 2010 to May 2013. The project had an Advisory Board with representatives from UCL ISH, English Heritage, UCL Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and The London Centre for Nanotechnology. 

The Postdoc grant was funded by the UK AHRC/EPSRC Science & Heritage Programme

People

Henoc Agbota

Image credit

Unsplash: Kevin Canlas

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