2 July. After the first week dedicated to the context and the identification of risks to cultural heritage, the second week introduced a fundamental aspect of cultural heritage risk assessment: the notion of cultural heritage values and of value assessment.  Lectures and exercises alternated to explore this issue and, in particular, the relationship between material loss and loss of value, and the notion of relative significance within a collection or an ensemble of movable and immovable heritage.

The course focused on writing risk scenarios that described for each specific risk identified, the chain of causes, from the source to consequences, and related loss of value. Quantitative data as precise as possible are provided in scenarios to allow estimates of rates of damaging processes, or the likelihood of events, as well as of the extent of loss to collections within a given period of time. Throughout the week, participants developed and refined scenarios for the specific risks they had earlier to the ASTRA Traditional Folk Civilization Museum collections.  The week culminated with the quantification and comparison of the various risks.

In order to illustrate and to practice the use of quantitative information in writing risk scenarios, as well as to discuss current opportunities and challenges related to the acquisition of that kind of information, a series of illustrated lectures, discussions, group exercises, and role playing was carried out on the following topics:

• material science and vulnerability to incorrect RH, temperature and light;
• statistics and historical records of earthquake and fire risks;
• calculating the magnitude of risks for the case study

Member States represented: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, China, Greece, Estonia, France, Hungary, Germany, Iran, Netherlands, Nigeria, Romania and United Kingdom

updated on: 24 November, 2007