MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE AND FIRE HAZARDS IMPACT ON RURAL CULTURAL HERITAGE

Rural heritage definition encompassed, not far ago, the built environment associated with agriculture activities. Only recent, it was assigned a wider perspective that include both tangible and intangible elements reflecting the relation between landscape and humans communities with their specific habitudes, values and traditions. The new approaches on the cultural heritage does not consider an object in itself as heritage, but as part of an assembly of elements expressing an identity.
Since rural areas occupy almost 80% of the European territory covering more than 32% of the continent population1 and the phenomenon has a global scale, the protection of rural heritage areas requires a regional and cross-border cooperation. The local actions must take into consideration a global responsibility for cultural heritage’s future. The reports of Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change forecast a multiple stresses and systemic failures caused by climatic changes that in Europe2 will affect physical and biological systems in next 35 years.
Although the rural architectural tradition has specific features, individual identities, all these local, regional and national variations maintain a European character, a shared original past. Furthermore, the accelerated abandon of rural areas is a critical parameter in the increasing rural heritage degradation. A common goal is to increase the rural heritage resilience to accelerated climate change and fire hazards in order to preserve the integrity of existing rural heritage buildings.