Disaster Risk Management for Cultural Heritage

Who should attend?

• Government agency staff working in the fields of cultural heritage and/or emergency management
• Heritage owners and site managers
• Heritage professionals - architects, engineers, archaeologists, conservators, collections management, etc
• Emergency services personnel responding to fire, extreme weather, flood, earthquake, structural collapse and more
• Senior cultural heritage students 
• Flinders students registering are required to be at the postgraduate level of study. Senior undergraduates may enrol upon checking with the course coordinator. 

Course content

Climate change impacts and natural disasters such as sea level rise, coastal floods, extreme weather, and increases in bushfire frequency and intensity put many archaeological and heritage sites at risk from erosion, inundation, and destruction. This potential loss of heritage—both tangible and intangible— is grave and requires immediate mitigative action.

The course takes a multi-hazard approach and will engage multiple areas of expertise: 

• Emergency management
• Emergency response
• Cultural heritage management
• Policy
• Strategic planning for disaster

Learning objectives

The workshop will include, amongst the others, an introduction to:

• Emergency management frameworks
• The concept of risk as a product of exposure and vulnerability
• Identifying and evaluating risks to cultural heritage from natural and human hazards, including climate change
• The disaster cycle - planning for all phases of a disaster before it occurs
• Developing strategies to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disaster
• Engaging with emergency service
• Working with local communities and stakeholders
• Facilitating recovery of heritage and communities