Cultural Heritage Conservation: Planning For Reconstruction

Cultural heritage conservation helps a community not only protect economically valuable physical assets, but also preserve its practices, history, and environment, and a sense of continuity and identity. Cultural property may be more at risk from the secondary effects of a disaster than from the disaster itself, therefore quick action will be needed. Built vernacular heritage offers a record of a societys continuous adaptation to social and environmental challenges, including extreme events, such as past disasters. This record can often be drawn on to design mitigation strategies for new construction or retrofitting. Communities should prioritize which cultural assets to preserve, considering both cultural meaning and livelihood implications, although reaching a consensus may be difficult. Cultural heritage conservation plans are best designed before a disaster, but, in their absence, heritage authorities can and should collaborate to develop effective post-disaster heritage conservation strategies. Because vernacular cultural properties are sometimes capable of withstanding local climate conditions, they may serve as safe havens where surrounding communities can temporarily relocate.