HYPERION project

HYPERION will produce a comprehensive tool to assess the threats of climate change in tandem with other natural hazards to cultural heritage sites.

The ambition is also to

• visualize the built heritage and cultural landscape under future climate scenarios;
• model the effects of different adaptation strategies; and 
• ultimately prioritize any rehabilitation actions to best allocate funds in both pre- and post-event environments.

Recent studies highlight the potential impact of Climate Change and geo-hazards, such as landslides and earthquakes, on historic areas hosting Cultural Heritage sites and monuments, which in turn yield significant adverse impacts on economies, politics and societies. 

The deterioration of Cultural Heritage sites is one of the biggest challenges in conservation; aspects such as building technologies/materials, structural responses, preventive measures and restoration strategies, resilience and adaptation methodologies must be considered.

HYPERION will leverage existing tools and services, e.g.: 

• climate/extreme events models, and their impacts; 
• decay models of building materials; and 
• Copernicus services, etc., 

HYPERION will also deliver novel technologies, that means: 

• terrestrial and satellite imaging for wide-area inspection; and
• advanced machine learning, etc., to deliver an integrated resilience assessment platform, addressing multi-hazard risk understanding, better preparedness, faster, adapted and efficient response, and sustainable reconstruction of historic areas.

HYPERION will: 

• take into account the local eco-systems in the Cultural Heritage areas;
• mapping out their interactions; and 
• follow a truly integrated/sustainable reconstruction approach. 

HYPERION will do this by:

• incorporating active community participation; 
• supporting new business models based on the concept of a “load-balancing” economy; and 
• offering financial risk-transfer tools that can ensure the immediate funds availability to fuel timely build-back-better efforts.

The HYPERION integrated resilience assessment platform offers an overarching strategy that:  

• includes risk management, protection and preparedness as complementary strategies to prevent damages to cultural sites;
• identify and ward off additional threats and promote adaptation, reconstruction and other post-disruption strategies to restore normal conditions to the historic area; and
• includes long-term strategic approaches to adapt to Climate Change and to wield policy tools for economic resilience.