the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 11 Jun 2024
Tangible and intangible ex-post assessment of flood-induced damages to cultural heritage
Abstract. Floods pose significant risks to cultural heritage (CH), yet post-disaster damage data to CH remain lacking. In this paper, we address this gap by focusing on the ex-post assessment of flood-induced damage to CH. The method involves the identification of damaged assets, and a field survey to assess tangible (LTV) and intangible (LIV) damage. The potential contributing factors e.g., water depth and river slope, are analyzed through geospatial analysis. Ex-post damage data to CH are compared with the outcome of an ex-ante analysis based on available methods to verify the quality of exposure data and possible limitations. The method is applied to the 15–16 September 2022 flood event that occurred in the Marche Region (Italy). The survey involved 14 CH in 4 municipalities and 3 catchments. Results highlight the inadequacy of existing exposure data for ex-ante damage assessment. However, ex-post data confirm that religious architectures are likely to suffer the highest LTV and LIV. The ex-post damage analysis provided a semi-quantitative 15 evaluation of both LTV and LIV in relation to flood characteristics. Notably, significant correlations between LTV and flood depth, as well as with the slope of the riverbed (a proxy for river flow velocity), were found. LIV correlates well to flood depth and river slope although with lower R2 and larger RMSE, highlighting that intangible impact analysis requires more effort than hazard characterization. Further research should increase the availability of ex-post damage data to CH to pose the basis for damage model validation and development of empirical vulnerability functions.
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Status: open (until 25 Jul 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2024-104', Julius Schlumberger, 21 Jun 2024
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In the manuscript 'Tangible and intangible ex-post assessment of flood-induced damages to cultural heritage', the authors present a method for post-event assessment of tangible and intangible damages for cultural heritage sites. They apply the method to a case study and discuss some findings through exploring correlations and discuss strengths and limitations of the method. The authors write very clearly and present the new, relevant and insightful method comprehensively and with good support from literature. I enjoyed reading this manuscript and want to congratulate the authors on this valuable contribution to the scientific literature
The only question to the authors refers to the quantification system for LTV and Value Score and LIV. The authors use ranges for these (5-30; 10-3; 0-1) without much discussion on how they determined these values to be reasonable and robust. Adding a few sentences to elaborate on how these ranges were chosen would enhance the manuscript. Additionally, discussing the limitations of such an expert-judgment-based quantification framework in the discussion section would be beneficial.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-104-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2024-104', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Jun 2024
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The submitted manuscript addresses a particularly important topic in the field of risk management for cultural heritage. Moreover, since research dealing with the post-event assessment of damage and loss to cultural heritage is a topic underrepresented in the scientific literature, namely in terms of flood impacts, the presented study is an important addition to the scholarship in this field.
The manuscript is well written and presents the new proposed method comprehensively with adequate support from the existing literature. While the manuscript is generally good, the following comments include several suggestions and questions with the objective of enhancing clarity and providing additional information to the reader:
- Line 43: the reference (Garrote et al., 2019) does not address cultural heritage. Consider replacing it by the following reference which addresses the development of heritage site-specific vulnerability curves for flood risk assessment:
Figueiredo, R., Romao, X., Paupério, E. (2021). Component-based flood vulnerability modelling for cultural heritage buildings. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 61, 102323.
- Line 45-46: For completeness, consider adding the reference (Garrote et al., 2020) which proposes a method for regional flood risk assessment at heritage sites:
- Lines 86-87: In the sentence “The proposed method is applied to the case study of the flood event that interested the Marche Region (Central Italy) on 15-16 September 2022.”, consider replacing the word “interested“ by “impacted”.
- Lines 138-143: The definition of what is a cultural heritage site in the context of the current study needs to be clarified. Up to this point it appears that only officially designed/listed/protected sites are considered (since the authors have mentioned the MIC database earlier). However, in this sub-section, other criteria are mentioned for considering a site a cultural heritage site (i.e. tourism or local significance). Does this mean that non officially designated/listed/protected sites are considered? Moreover, the authors refer that sites from the official MIC database could actually be excluded. Why were officially designed/listed/protected sites excluded unless they actually don’t exist? Are the authors putting more trust in tourism websites and social media reviews than in the official cultural heritage listings? If so, why? This needs to be clearly explained to better understand the context of the current study. Moreover, please also indicate what are the cultural heritage listing/designation levels included in the MIC database (World Heritage, national, regional, provincial, municipal, etc).
- Lines 151-164: The measurement of ”Max. water level outside the building” and its use for damage inference requires some clarifications. When selecting the reference level, it is not clear if the selected “flat area” corresponds to the ground level of the heritage construction. If it does not, i.e., if the reference level is the streel level and the ground level of the heritage construction is above/below the street level, shouldn’t there be a measurement of the construction ground level that would be subtracted/added to the mud mark level? Moreover, the example of the bridge that is given assumes that the deck is leveled, but in case it is arched, upwards or downwards, what should be the reference level? Also, consider replacing “building” by “construction” in the survey form since it is also applicable to bridges (given the example that is referred when measuring the water level) and other types of construction (based on the case study).
- Line 176-178: The reason for excluding the “no value” category is not well supported. Not all sites possess all these categories of values. Some might only have 3 of the 4 categories, for example. Assigning the “no value” level to a category states this clearly. On the other hand, the “unknown value” refers to a lack of knowledge on the part of the assessor about the level of value which should not be mixed with the “no value” category (which is what the authors actually do in Table 2 since several descriptions for the Unknown category indicate there is no value for that category). Given these conceptual differences, if the authors choose to aggregate these two categories, they need to clearly mention that it is a simplification and explain why this simplification is relevant for the purpose of their study.
- Table 2: In the Aesthetic category, the High value means it is a valuable structure AND there are valuable artworks inside? This is not clear. In the Historical category, the time limits are not clear. I assume that 1800 and 1900 structures refers to 19th century and 20th century constructions (if so, please use the time ranges in centuries for clarity, if not, please clarify what you mean). Assuming these time ranges, a construction of less than 70 years can also be from the 20th century. How is this solved when scoring this category?
Moreover, the scores for each type of value do not reflect any type of difference in terms of international/national/regional significance. Why? Are all the sites considered in the study in the same level of listing/protection (i.e. are all the sites nationally designated sites, or regionally designated sites, for example?)?
- Line 187: The authors need to be more precise and detailed when referring to loss in tangible values. It is referred that this category of losses is connected to physical damage and the costs of restoration. However, much of the repair and the restoration works in a cultural heritage site are often connected to restoring or minimizing the loss of aesthetic values (which is an intangible value). Moreover, restoring a wooden floor made with some sort of woodworking technique that is important from an historical point of view and that was damaged by the flood is also a way to minimize the loss in the historical intangible value. Therefore, the authors need to make clear that LTV refers only to the level of physical impact of the event and the comprehensiveness of the necessary repair/restoration actions, while impact to the intangible values which also depend on the direct effect of the event (see another comment below) is captured using the LIV.
- Line 189: Consider including walls and arches as load bearing elements since many traditional constructions in masonry will have these elements.
- Line 191: Most losses in intangible value are caused by the direct impact of floods, not the indirect impacts. The physical damage can cause loss of aesthetic value, and a level of physical damage that includes the total destruction of the site will cause total (or near total) loss of historical and evidential value. Please correct the sentence.
- Line 224: Please indicate what DTM means.
- Line 230: Please indicate what DEM means.
- Line 235: It has been previously mentioned that the MIC database represents the cultural heritage sites as points, not as polygons. So how were the necessary polygons established?
- Section 4.1.1: The authors need to clarify if the 14 sites that are considered in the study are all the sites that were impacted by the flood or just a sample. In case it is the latter, please indicate why only a sample of the sites was considered. Moreover, given the comments made before regarding what is considered a cultural heritage site in the context of the current study (about Lines 138-143), please indicate which of these sites are not officially designated/listed heritage sites, if any.
- Section 4.1.2: The authors should provide some comments regarding the following aspects:
1) since both LTV and LIV are based on scores that involve qualitative scales, and since these scales could be different (e.g. for LIV, the authors do not use the scale that is proposed in (Romao et al, 2021) for scoring V, or LTV could be scored using a multiplicative scale instead of an additive scale), some comments are needed to discuss how the correlations and the corresponding conclusions could change as a function of considering different scales. A sensitivity analysis of these results with respect to the assumptions made in the scoring scales would be needed to strengthen these conclusions.
2) how would the proposed process change if the constructions had basements that were flooded? The MWL might need to be increased but this does not necessarily mean that the corresponding LIV or LTV values would increase also. This might also have an impact on the correlations. Some discussion on this issue would be appreciated.
- Section 4.2: Some clarifications are needed regarding the following aspects:
1) Of the 14 heritage sites, 5 were in the MIC database and the floodable areas and 9 were not. Regarding these 9, 3 were not in MIC database. So why were they considered as heritage sites? This comes back to the previous question about the definition of what is a cultural heritage site in the current study.
2) Of the 55 heritage sites that were identified as potentially damageable by a flood, only 5 were considered by this study. Is it true that the remaining 50 were not damaged by the flood? The authors refer that “37 cultural assets are residential, productive, rural, or tertiary architectures, with no local or touristic/cultural interest”, but they don’t mention that they were not damaged by the flood? So, were they damaged or not? If they were damaged, why were they not considered in this study (this is also related to the comment made regarding Section 4.1.1)? Also, the claim that they have “no cultural interest” is strange given they are in the MIC database. Please discuss and clarify this issue. Finally, the remaining 13 sites are “religious architectures or historical infrastructures that are located in flood hazard areas” that were not damaged by the flood? Please confirm this issue also.
- Figures: the quality of Figures 2 a, c, and d) needs to be improved, as well as that of Figures 5 a) to f)
- References: Many references need to be revised to be consistent with the journal’s format.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2024-104-RC2
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