SASCHA

This is a research project from UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage (ISH)

Project Team

Scott Orr (Project Lead)
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Josep Grau-Bové (Co-investigator)
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Dates:

June 2024 – May 2027

The Challenge

Climate change presents significant risks to cultural heritage, but existing assessments are often regional and fail to capture the unique value of individual sites. There is a need for methods that can address both local specificity and global context, while integrating the perspectives of communities connected to these sites.

The SASCHA project aims to develop practical tools and methods to assess and manage climate change risks to cultural heritage sites worldwide. By applying multiscale analysis, SASCHA seeks to bridge local knowledge and global data, ensuring that vulnerability assessments are relevant to specific sites while also considering broader environmental trends.

Our Approach

• Develop innovative methods for multiscale climate risk assessment.
• Investigate case studies including Ventotene Island (Italy), alongside heritage sites, landscapes, and communities in Norway, the UK, and the US.
• Create holistic indicators for heritage vulnerability.
• Promote collaboration between academic and heritage partners, linking projects beyond their core remit to explore multisensory heritage, nature-culture relations, and engagement with local and Indigenous communities.

Why this matters

SASCHA will provide tools and methods that enable more accurate and actionable assessments of climate change risks for heritage sites, supporting policymakers, heritage managers, and communities in planning effective mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Funders 

Joint Programming Initiatives on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI CH), Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe (JPI Climate), Belmont Forum

Partners

• Academic Partners: Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research (NIKU); Arizona State University, US; NHAZCA, Italy; North Carolina State University, US
• Heritage Partners: ICCROM; English Heritage Trust, UK; Ventotene Municipality, Italy

Resource and outputs

• Read about the project on the Joint Programming Initiative Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe (JPI) website

   

For more information on sensory heritage research at UCL, visit UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage

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