In 2002, the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at University College London undertook a scoping study for English Heritage on the impact of climate change and the historic environment. The research methodology identified the significant climate change parameters and their impact on the historic environment in consultation with key stakeholders.
UCL's: Impact of Climate Change on The Historic Environment report includes advice on how the historic environment, encompassing historic buildings and collections, buried archaeology and parks and gardens, should adapt to climate change. The advice is summarised below.
Effortless Measures
The most effortless way of adapting to the impact of climate change such as floods, intense rainfall, high winds and draught is by streamlining current monitoring, management and maintenance practices to enhance the stability of the historic environment. This makes sense no matter the severity of the impact of climate change.
Local Response
The impact of extreme weather is often felt locally or regionally. This is where disaster preparedness and decisions on emergency response should be made.
The heritage sector, with its natural affinity for long-term planning, can make a positive contribution to the measures being developed by agencies responsible for the impact of climate change in other sectors such as the Environment Agency. To be effective, co-ordination with the Environment Agency and the local Fire Service is essential - as are local cross-disciplinary training programmes on basic preventive maintenance.
These include:
- Preventive maintenance - keeping gutters, hoppers and down pipes free of debris may be enough to ensure that during a heavy downpour, water can flow safely away from buildings without wetting walls. Routine preventive maintenance cannot be replaced by infrequent repairs to failing rainwater goods, lead flashing or mortar joins.
- Emergency preparedness - heavy downpours are increasingly being accompanied by high winds, so the immediate protection of storm-damaged property can reduce the risk of further damage. A simple heavy duty tarpaulin that can be safely secured in a storm by trained volunteers can prevent further water damage to the interior of a building.
- Being realistic - it has never been a realistic proposition to conserve anything forever or everything for any time at all. Rising sea levels and coastal erosion may cause a re-evaluation of the ‘save all’ approach to the historic environment. Faced with limited resources, great environmental risks and a huge number of cultural assets, a methodical assessment of what is conserved and why, and the value and significance of the commonplace is necessary.
- Adaptation - two important foci of the purposeful adaptation of the historic environment to climate change are modifying drainage and rainwater goods in historic buildings and the discreet provision of irrigation and water storage in parks and gardens. These make sense even if there were no climate change, as too much water is being drawn from aquifers and groundwater sources. Opportunities need to be found to roll out and integrate these measures into existing or planned initiatives in buildings, archaeology, parks and gardens.
