Title: Wateriskult | Programme: H2020 | Funded under H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Start Date 01/09/2022 - End Date 31/08/2024

The impact of climate change on cultural heritage has been addressed only recently beside the most discussed environmental and socioeconomic implications. Broad attention is given to the vulnerability of tangible cultural assets on land, whereas underwater sites are often neglected.

WATERISKULT provides the first quantitative assessment of the climate change risk to underwater cultural heritage, with a focus on archaeological stone. The project aims at predicting the effects of key-factors of climate change on stone deterioration, i.e. ocean acidification and increasing intensity and shifts of extreme weather events (storms); by laboratory simulations, field exposure tests, and monitoring of heritage stones, the effects of different levels of CO2 in seawater and high-intensity ocean currents are investigated. This project also aims at exploring the causes and effects of current deterioration in underwater archaeological sites, constrained by diverse stone properties and submarine environments, specifically in the Mediterranean region. Downscaled trends and patterns of observed and predicted stone decay are obtained, based on the (micro)structural and compositional changes and biodeterioration. This research adopts an interdisciplinary approach involving petrography/mineralogy, oceanography, analytical chemistry, marine biology, hydraulic engineering, and underwater archaeology.

WATERISKULT may pave the way to long-term strategies of heritage protection and studies of other archaeological materials. By marking a step forward in assessing the climate change risk to the anthroposphere, the timeliness of this project reflects the policies and research promoted by the EU, at the forefront of the fight against climate change and heritage valorization. The echo of the environmental debate on the media is now stronger than ever, and so are the possibilities to raise public awareness.

WATERISKULT SOCIAL NETWORK  

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The project WATERISKULT has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (grant agreement no. 101022386).