Background
Climate change over the next 100 years is likely to have a range of direct and indirect effects on the natural and material environment, including cultural heritage. Important changes will include:
- alterations in temperature
- precipitation
- extreme climatic events
- soil conditions
- groundwater and sea level.
Some processes of building decay will be accelerated or worsened by climate change, while others will be delayed. The impacts on individual processes can be described, but it’s difficult to assess the overall risk posed by climate change using currently available data. Linking global changes to the response of material surfaces of archaeological and historic structures is a challenge.
Aims
The Noah’s Ark project aimed to:
- determine the meteorological parameters and changes most critical to the built cultural heritage.
- research, predict and describe the effects of climate change on Europe’s built cultural heritage over the next 100 years.
- develop mitigation and adaptation strategies for historic buildings, sites, monuments and materials that are likely to be worst affected by climate change effects and associated disasters.
- disseminate information on climate change effects and the optimum adaptation strategies for adoption by Europe’s cultural heritage managers through a conference and guidelines.
- provide electronic information sources and tools for heritage managers to assess the threats of climate change in order to visualise the built heritage and cultural landscape under future climate scenarios, and model the effects of different adaptation strategies.
- advise policy-makers and legislators through the project’s Policy Advisory Panel.
- use the results to allow for prediction of the impact of climate and pollution on cultural heritage and investigation of the response of historic materials and structures to future climate scenarios on a European scale. The outcome would allow the definition of guidelines and adaptation strategies, leading to possible changes in EC Directives.
The Noah's Ark project took a strategic overview of the changing pressures on heritage rather than examining individual monuments. The results cover a wide geographical base and were presented as a vulnerability atlas for Europe and accompanying management guidelines.
- 'The Atlas of Climate Change Impact on European Cultural Heritage Scientific Analysis and Management Strategies', edited by C. Sabbioni, P. Brimblecombe and M. Cassar
This book aimed to fill the gap in studies on the effects of future climate variations on cultural heritage by presenting maps that link climate science to potential damage to material heritage. It also contained guidelines which provided a management context to the scientific findings.
Forewords to The Atlas included:
“The European Council's approval of a Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage, Climate Change and Security which has emerged from the Noah's Ark Project will ensure that the European effort that is necessary to develop our understanding and the resilience of cultural heritage in the 21st century will continue to provide policy makers with the evidence needed to protect cultural heritage for future generations." – Professor Cristina Gutierrez-Cortines MEP and Professor Vittorio Prodi MEPThe pioneering project Noah's Ark, linking climate science and our changing environment to the potential damage to cultural heritage, has been widely acclaimed a success story. There has been worldwide interest and recognition of the achievements of this project, of which its research team can be truly proud. It certainly ranks among the FP7 projects most widely covered by the press. It has now developed this revealing Atlas, which provides a number of climate, damage and risk maps on various materials, enabling planners and heritage managers with broad strategic interests to view the likely changes in pressure on heritage at a European level. At this scale, it makes it possible to see emerging risks concerning heritage of the late 21st century and the way they will be spread across Europe. This broad vision allows long-term adaptive responses to climate change to tbe considered within the development of policy." – Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and ScienceImpact
The Noah’s Ark project was the first initiative to view the long term need of science in relation to climate change and cultural heritage. It was awarded the Europa Nostra Grand Prize for Research in 2009.
Debye
Debye is a mission proposal for ESA’s F-Class programme. Debye is a thermal electron telescope that will study electron heating in plasma.
31 Dec 2028
LAUNCHES QI
England CHD quality improvement 2018–2023: Linking audit & national datasets beyond 30-day survival to improve lifelong congenital heart services, adult CHD care & child-to-adult transition.
20 Feb 2026
PRAiS project
Risk adjustment after children’s heart surgery, fair survival comparisons & transparent communication. Accounting for case mix in congenital heart disease services.
19 Feb 2026