Managing Disaster Risks

Risk Management as Part of Heritage Management Plan

Recent events have revealed the vulnerability of cultural heritage to the risks of disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunami, floods, and human-induced conflicts.

UNESCO Chair on Cultural Heritage and Risk Management was established at Research Center for Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage (CMUCH) of the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 2006 as a follow up of the recommendation adopted at the thematic meeting of Cultural Heritage Risk Management organised at the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction (Kobe, 2005). The objective of this Chair is to enhance capacity of disaster risk management of cultural heritage through advocacy, training, and networking activities.

As part of the programme of the Chair, an International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage has been organised annually since 2008 in cooperation with the UNESCO, ICCROM, and ICOMOS. The objective of this Course is to provide experts mainly from the developing world with knowledge and skills necessary for the elaboration cultural heritage disaster management plan as integral part of cultural heritage management plan in order to better protect cultural heritage against different kinds of disasters.

UNESCO Chair on Cultural Heritage Risk Management

The fifth Course was held in September 2010 in Kyoto. Two experts each in the field of cultural heritage preservation and in disaster management from five countries (Bhutan, Palau, Peru, Serbia, and Turkey) were invited to participate in this Course. The participants have acquired knowledge of cultural heritage risk management through lectures, workshops and field visits, elaborating a disaster risk management plan for cultural heritage in their own countries. The Training Course was followed by a public symposium under the topic of "How to protect cultura lheritage from disasters: Risk preparedness and post disaster recovery".

• Source:UNESCO Apia
• 03-10-2010