Long-Term Monitoring Tools for Historical Buildings and Heritage Sites in Times of Climate Change

Dear Colleagues,

The efforts constantly put into the preservation of monumental buildings and sites are fundamental for the transferring of cultural backgrounds (history, art, architecture, traditions, politics, religion, etc.) to future generations.

In recent decades, alterations of climate conditions have been observed all over the world with dramatic consequences on many aspects of the society. This has influenced governments’ priorities, including those regarding the conservation of historical buildings and monumental sites.

The fast evolution of climate conditions is affecting the deterioration rates of structures just as quickly, and is completely introducing new degradation phenomena, or new in relation to the geographical area. The reasons must be found in the seasonal and daily variations of environmental parameters, which in turn, for example, affect the movement/migration of water through the capillary structures of building materials and consequently of salts and other dissolved compounds.

In many countries, historical buildings also host museum collections, therefore the correct maintenance of structures is fundamental to guarantee the health of exposed and/or stored artworks, which involve the most different materials, each of them necessitating specific climate conditions. In other cases, the historical buildings underwent further changes in their intended use, for example becoming institutional headquarters, libraries, universities, archives, etc. This means that all of these structures experienced refurbishment interventions to combine the conservation of original structures (and often of the related decorations) within the new building scope and the consequent comfort of the workers/ visitors.

Most of the times, heating systems are used to control both temperature and relative humidity conditions in the cold season, while only the bigger or newer institutions work, including in their design ad hoc heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC). Studies carried out in recent decades clearly demonstrated that there is not one single optimal solution for all the situations, and researchers need to carefully study the actual long-term environmental conditions before planning micro/macro climate control systems.

This volume aims to update the community about the most recent studies on the impact of the environment on the conservation of historical buildings and monumental sites. The focus is not only on the documentation of ongoing detrimental effects, but also on the methodologies applied for conducting surveys and assessing the conditions of structures.

Topics of interest to be considered:

1. The long and short term monitoring of historical buildings/monumental/archaeological sites;
2. The investigation of decay mechanisms occurring on historical structures;
3. Evaluation of strategies for the monitoring of climate in historical buildings and of the early stage detection of induced damages;
4. Climate assessment for the conservation of museums’ collections;
5. Refurbishment of historical buildings and climate-related issues.

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• Historical buildings
• museum environment
• archaeological/monumental sites
• climate/microclimate monitoring
• decay/alteration mechanisms
• risk assessment
• refurbishment projects