Simplified risk assessment of immovable cultural heritage assets

Abstract

A simplified risk assessment framework specifically developed for built immovable cultural heritage assets is proposed. The framework addresses the several components involved in a risk analysis and can be used as a screening procedure for the preliminary assessment of a large number of assets with limited resources. It can also be used to identify cultural heritage assets that require a more refined and resource demanding risk evaluation. The proposed risk analysis framework falls into the category of qualitative methods and is based on a series of structured questionnaires that address the main components of a risk analysis: The likelihood of the hazard, the consequences of the hazard, the vulnerability of the asset to the hazard, the loss of value of the asset and the capacity to recover from the event. In order to illustrate its application, a case study is presented in which the risk analysis is performed for a church in Italy that was damaged, in 2009, by the L'Aquila earthquake.