Vulnerability analysis and risk map of cultural heritage: the case of the historical town of Mérida, Spain

Trabajo presentado al 8th International Symposium on the Conservation of Monuments in the Mediterranean Basin (ISCMMB): "Monument Damage Hazards and Rehabilitation Technologies", celebrado del 31 de mayo al 2 de junio de 2010 en Patras (Grecia).-- et al.The risk assessment of the damage, which can undergo the historical heritage, is very useful for its conservation. The risk maps give information about the probability of the main hazards in a region. These risk maps are tools to be used to identify, evaluate and prioritize the restoration actions on a degraded monument and to forecast the preventive maintenance budget, and they even allow political strategies for the conservation. As a good risk assessment needs of a large number of risk variables and vulnerability parameters to be analyzed and compared, these studies are impractical due to the excessive time consumption, and the high cost of the analysis. For this purpose, GIS (Geographical Information System) are usually employed. This technique has some obvious advantages to the risks analysis application for cultural heritage conservation, such as the capability of simultaneous risks assessment and geographical references. On the other hand, the vulnerability study implies the conservation analysis in situ, and it needs adapted protocol for archaeological heritage. In this study, we present the first results of a project for the risk assessment of the historical town of Mérida (Spain). A GIS application (ArcGIS software) has been used to reference and a vulnerability index has been employed for the analysis of the conservation degree of three monuments: the Arch of Trajan, the Aqueduct of the Miracles and the Roman Bridge).Peer Reviewe