Deterioration and decay of wooden cultural heritage in Arctic and Alpine environments

Our wooden cultural heritage in the Arctic Svalbard and the Alpine regions of mainland Norway is situated in vulnerable ecosystems with high impact from the ongoing climate changes in addition to increased human influence and land use changes. The UN Sustainable Development Goals highlights the importance of strengthening the efforts to protect and safeguard the world?s cultural and natural heritage. The main objective of ArcticAlpineDecay is to mitigate negative consequences of these threats. We know that climate change will increase the fungal decay rate of wood in service and in cultural heritage in Arctic and Alpine regions. We further hypothesise that human influence and land use changes will further accelerate the deterioration. ArcticAlpineDecay will increase the resilience of wooden cultural heritage through cross-disciplinary cooperation and basic research involving stakeholders, public authorities, tourist trade, commerce, cultural-historical science, wood science and societal science. The main tasks in the projects are to: 1) identify and quantify the wood characteristics and decay rate resulting from fungal deterioration of wood and include the data in an open access database, 2) identify the impact of user, tourist and guide behaviour and perception regarding wooden cultural heritage, 3) provide future deterioration scenarios and risk assessment analysis for typologies of wooden cultural heritage and 4) assemble a web knowledge platform. The platform shall facilitate future practical, sustainable and fitting management strategies to ensure the resilience of wooden cultural heritage. This will also include the people's knowledge and perception of the use and protection of cultural environments in the face of climatic, environmental and societal change. Such an approach will ensure sustainable use and management of wooden cultural heritage in Arctic and Alpine environments and thereby fulfil the UN SDGs. In agreement with the Research Council, the project started on November 1 2021 due to challenges with the implementation of fieldwork given the corona restrictions. In the period November 1 to December 1 2021, start-up meeting and core group meetings were held to plan fieldwork and other activities. Furthermore, a Web page was created for the project.

Our wooden cultural heritage in the Arctic Svalbard and the Alpine regions of mainland Norway is situated in vulnerable ecosystems with high impact from the ongoing climate changes in addition to threats from increased human influence and land use changes. The UN Sustainable Development Goals highlights the importance of strengthening the efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. The main objective of ArcticAlpineDecay is to mitigate negative consequences of these threats. We know that climate change will increase the fungal decay rate of wood in service and in cultural heritage in Arctic and Alpine regions. We further hypothesise that human influence and land use changes will further accelerate the deterioration. ArcticAlpineDecay will increase the resilience of wooden cultural heritage through cross-disciplinary cooperation and basic research involving stakeholders, public authorities, tourist trade, commerce, cultural-historical science, wood science and societal science. The main tasks in the projects are to: 1) identify and quantify the wood characteristics and decay rate resulting from fungal deterioration of wood and include the data in an open access database, 2) identify the impact of user, tourist and guide behaviour and perception regarding wooden cultural heritage, 3) provide future deterioration scenarios and risk assessment analysis for typologies of wooden cultural heritage and 4) assemble a web knowledge platform. The platform shall facilitate future practical, sustainable and fitting management strategies to ensure the resilience of wooden cultural heritage. This will also include the people's knowledge and perception of the use and protection of cultural environments in the face of climatic, environmental and societal change. Such an approach will ensure sustainable use and management of wooden cultural heritage in Arctic and Alpine environments and thereby fulfil the project objective and UN SDGs.