Flood vulnerability models for damage assessment of artworks and cultural heritage buildings

Abstract. The assessment of flood-related losses to cultural heritage (CH) remains one of the most underexplored areas in flood risk management, largely due to the complexity of CH assets and their multiple, often intangible, values. In this study, extensive field data collection and archival research on artwork restoration costs were undertaken to support a synthetic approach for developing vulnerability models for both the building envelope and internal artworks across three primary CH asset types: places of worship, museums, and libraries. The methodology was applied to the historic city of Florence (Italy), enabling the derivation of mean and percentile vulnerability curves from a sample of 48 inspected CH buildings. For a 500-year flood scenario, estimated average losses amount to approximately €2.5 million for the building envelope and €3 million for artworks per asset, with total damages to CH in the city reaching approximately €550 million. While direct monetary loss estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty, the model results align well with available ex-post data, particularly for places of worship. These findings demonstrate that flood-related monetary losses to CH assets are far from negligible when compared to other damage categories, such as residential buildings, and therefore warrant increasing attention from the scientific and policy-making communities.