Vulnerability and Hazard analysis

Both the general conceptual structure and the architecture of the Risk Map’s are directly derived from the adopted risk model, which guided the data collection and characterized the analysis and elaboration criteria. According to this model, to assess the risk, it is necessary to be in possession of information about the vulnerability of the monument under enquiry and about the possible dangers of the context in which it is located.

Vulnerability, in the sense of a condition which is contrary to safety, was assessed considering the individual monument’s architectural and constructive characteristics; the dimensional data about its rooms and structures; its building history, the nature of materials it is made of and their possible condition of mechanical, physical-chemical and biological degradation; the presence of painted or sculpted decorative systems and their specific characteristics.

The hazard depends on the possibility that potentially damaging dynamics could develop in the monument’s environment.

The hazard scenarios we have mentioned can belong to two main typologies: the physical-environmental and the anthropic one.

The first typology includes the risk factors related to the environment.

Among the anthropic factors are dynamics which are characterized by both positive and negative potentials. For instance, tourist flows bring hard currency, thus inducing a profitable economical effect, but they can also contribute to the monuments’ degradation.

The outline of anthropic risk factors also includes data about settlements resting on surrounding areas, both of residential and of productive (agricultural and industrial) and/or tertiary type.