STORM

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 700191. The budget of the project is 7,3 M-euros and it will be executed by a consortium of 22 partners (2 are associated partners) from 7 countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, UK, Italy, Portugal and Turkey) under the coordination of ENG - Engineering Ingegneria Informatica in Italy (Dr. Silvia Boi, silvia.boi@eng.it).

STORM plans to introduce an integrated framework and a platform providing tools and services both on macro level to give a global view of the entire value chain and on specific level to promote the improvement of specific processes for protection and danger prevention. A novelty of STORM is the promotion of a supportive framework for both levels. STORM will allow users to address each single issue within a simple process supported by the related technology. The STORM integrated framework will manage those modules to give a view that can be drilled down to give stakeholders the possibility to improve it. To support this, STORM will introduce a system to identify existing processes adding critical relationship management automation to improve the process itself. STORM aims to provide critical decision making tools to all European Cultural Heritage stakeholders affected by climate change and natural hazards and will provide a new innovative capability to improve existing processes related to three identified areas which form the project's objectives' blocks: Prevention, Intervention and Policies, Planning and Processes.

STORM aims at defining, developing and assessing a technological integrated framework providing eco-innovative, cost-effective and collaborative methodologies, techniques, and services to improve the safeguard, maintenance and conservation of cultural heritage sites, in order to mitigate the effect of frequent and increasingly intense climate phenomena and natural hazards and reduce the consequences once the disaster has occurred. Thanks to this vision all the actors involved in the management and preservation of European Cultural Heritage sites will benefit of its outcomes (architects, restorers, archaeologists, site curators, seismologists, meteorologists, climate change experts, sensor providers, ICT service providers, civil protection, rescue organisations, policy and decision makers, and critical but often forgotten - citizens and site visitors). In fact, STORM will investigate and propose a set of novel predictive models and improved non-invasive and non-destructive methods of surveying and diagnosis, respectively for effective prediction of environmental changes and for revealing threats and conditions that could damage materials and structures of the Cultural Heritage sector. An integrated system featuring novel sensors (intra fluorescent and wireless acoustic sensors), legacy systems, state of the art platforms (including LiDAR and UAVs), as well as crowdsourcing techniques will be implemented. Moreover, the STORM project will determine how materials of diverse resilience, structures and buildings are affected by different, extreme weather events together with risks associated to climatic conditions or natural hazards, offering improved, effective adaptation 4 and mitigation strategies, systems and technologies to different materials and structures. An important result of STORM will be a cooperation platform for collaboratively collecting and enhancing knowledge, processes and methodologies on sustainable and effective safeguarding and management of European Cultural Heritage. STORM throughout its whole cycle will be also supported by ICCROM, as associated Partner, an intergovernmental organisation founded by UNESCO, dedicated to the preservation and conservation of Cultural Heritage, which will boost the effect of the project dissemination through its various channels.

Results of STORM will be tested in relevant case studies in five different countries: Italy (Baths of Diocletian, Rome), Greece (Historical Centre of Rethymno, Crete), UK (Mellor Heritage site, Manchester), Portugal (Roman Ruins of Tróia), Turkey (Ephesus, Anatolia) and in another relevant site run by an associated partner Pompei, Italy. All sites are adequately representing the rich European Cultural Heritage and possess diverse characteristics constituting a challenge for the project, as it has to confront with different problems and risks caused by climate change and anthropogenic influence. Greece is represented in STORM by the GeoSat ReSeArch Lab of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (IMS-FORTH), the Ephorate of Antiquities of Rethymnon and the Department of Electronics Engineering of the Piraeus University of Applied Sciences (T.E.I. of Piraeus).

Information

Dr. Apostolos Sarris, IMS-FORTH, GeoSat ReSeArch Lab asaris@ims.forth.gr

Dr. Anastasia Tzigounaki, Ephorate of Antiquities of Rethymnon, atzigounaki@culture.gr

Prof. Charalampos Z. Patrikakis, Department of Electronics Engineering of the Piraeus University of Applied Sciences (T.E.I. of Piraeus), Communications and Networks Laboratory bpatr@teipir.gr

Further Information

www.storm-project.eu