A GIS-based flood damage index for cultural heritage

Evaluating potential consequences of floods on cultural heritage is one of the objectives of the 60/2007/EC Floods Directive. Nevertheless, the peculiarities of cultural heritage in terms of data availability, exposure values and vulnerability, make flood damage and risk analyses rarely applied. This work aims at developing a GIS-based Flood Damage Index for Cultural Heritage (FDICH) that (i) weights exposure based on the level of listing, (ii) weights vulnerability based on ad-hoc taxonomy, (iii) provides a damage density per unit surface instead than a point classification. FDICH is intended for large scale applications, e.g., regional or District ones, to identify damage hotspots and support risk mapping and management. The method is applied to the Po River District Authority, the largest in Italy, within a project framework for flood damage analysis of all exposed assets. In the territory of the district, a new spatial database of cultural heritage counting ca. 125,000 items is created and enriched with exposure and vulnerability attributes. The results allow for identifying 5 main cultural heritage damage hotspots and the calculation of FDICH shows the potential for cross-compare damages at District but also al local scales, for prioritization of mitigation measures.