RISK MANAGEMENT FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE SI TES IN ITALY: THE CASE OF THE U NESCO SITE PORTOVENERE, CINQUE TERRE AND THE ISLA NDS (PALMARIA, TINO AND TIN ETTO)

Cultural heritage is by its v ery nature in a condition of potential degrada tion, due to occasional catastrophic events and to cyclic an d continuous phenomena that may generate des tructive impacts in time. To fully achieve the protection of c ultural heritage, it is therefore important to ident ify the aggressive agents whose action threaten its preservatio n, in order to contain, reduce and, if possible, eliminate their effects.Although the interest in disa ster preparedness is renewed after the occurrence of any catastrophe, so far very little has been established on a formal level for the cultural heritage, which is rarely mentioned in local emergency plans and still ha s no actual intervention strategy, recognized an d shared internationally. Despite the lack of clear guidelines, several recent studies have tackled the subject, proposing the use of innovative tools for the detection and analysis of risks and impacts on cultural herita ge.Italy is often described as a C ountry of culture, history and art. Its immense cultural heritage, material and immaterial, natural and man made, is a precious asset that should guide our own development in a sustainable manner, respectful of its own characteristics and qualities.We brag about having the hig hest number of sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List (we have just recently reached 50 prope rties), never really and systematically taking into account that, along with the privileges of owning, sharing a nd benefit from such beauties, we bear the m oral duty to conserve it, protect it and manage it. In fact only about half of the Italian UNESCO sites have a management system in place, even though it is a mandatory document in the UNESCO framework and national law (law 77/2006),entitled “Special measures for preservation and fruition of the Italian sites of cultural, natural and landscape importance, inscribed on the ‘World Heritage list’, under the protection of the UNESCO”, expressly mentions the management plan as a typical element of World Heritage sites and giv es priority of funding to the UNESCO heritage sites, which a im at managing their cultural services and tourism flows (Badia, 2011).This paper aims at proposiing risk assessment an effective as a proacti ve form of preventive conservation and presents the fin al results of the application of UNESCO Dis aster Risk Management methodology to an Italian cultural landscape (Cinque Terre). This document was drafted during the 8th International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage 2013 held at Rits-DMUCH (Institute of Disaster Mitigation for Urban Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan Univer sity, Kyoto, Japan) and supported by UNESCO, ICCROM a nd ICOMOS – ICORP.

Keywords:

Risk Management , Cultural Heritage , Italy , Guidelines , Risk Preparedness