The National Coach Museum, in Lisbon, hosted two STORM project dissemination events on 5-6 April 2018, namely the STORM Symposium: Heritage and Risk Management in Portugal and the BrainSTORMing, the former opened to the general public and the latter destined to the national STORM external partners. Both initiatives were promoted by DGPC, TROIA RESORT, Nova Conservação Lda., the Grândola City Council and Inov Inesc Inovação – Instituto de Novas Tecnologias.
The Symposium
The Symposium aimed to present the results of the STORM Project and to divulgate risk prevention and reduction politics and methodologies for cultural heritage. The meeting was opened by DGPC’s general director Ar. Paula Silva, by the National Coach Museum’s director Dr. Silvana Bessone and by the ANPC’s Emergency Planning National Director Dr. José Oliveira, whose speeches alerted to the vulnerability of cultural heritage to the growing impact of natural threats and to the need to combine institutional efforts for the promotion of cultural heritage protective measures in emergency management.
The first speaker was Dr. Isabel Raposo Magalhães, from the National Coach Museum, who talked about Cultural Heritage and Risk: the lessons from History, detailing the possible impact of natural disasters in national and international historic monuments and the insisting on the need to develop good practices for its prevention and response.
This was the very principle presiding over the next talk, which highlighted the importance of the STORM Project for the development of safeguard policies in the field of cultural heritage, namely archaeological sites. The four subsequent talks, on specific topics addressed by the Project, reviewed the issues of risk assessment in the Roman Ruins of Tróia, disaster risk management and the conservation of built heritage, non-invasive assessment techniques and resilient communication, and protection plans and response procedures for cultural heritage in emergency situations.
In the afternoon session, moderated by Dr. Soraia Genin, from ICOMOS-PT, and Dr. José Delgado Rodrigues, from LNEC, speakers discussed safeguard and risk reduction policies for the cultural heritage and its relation to areas such as the civil protection and the climate change.
The symposium ended with two conferences based in two European projects, RESCCUE and ROCK, both being implemented by the Lisbon City Council, followed by the viewing of the documentary Renascer das águas. A coleção Calouste Gulbenkian de Livros Manuscritos Ocidentais e as inundações de 1967 (Rising from the waters. The Calouste Gulbenkian collection of Western Manuscript Books and the 1967 Floods), directed by Márcia Lessa in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
The BrainSTORMing
The BrainSTORMing’s aim was to debate and perform theoretical-practical exercises, to gather ideas and to validate some of the Project’s solutions, methodologies and approaches.
The day-long session was attended by the following STORM external partners: the Northern Regional Directorate of Culture, the Alentejo Regional Directorate of Culture, the Setúbal City Council – Civil Protection, the Lisbon Centre of Archaeology, the Conímbriga Museum, the Côa Parque Foundation, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, the Parques de Sintra – Monte da Lua and the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering.
The morning conferences were dedicated to the validation of risk assessment methodologies developed within WP5 and to the use of technological solutions for the protection of cultural heritage sites. In the afternoon there was a debate on the recent Council of Ministers Resolution on the Strategy for Prevention in Civil Protection and the dissimilation and training for the safeguard of endangered cultural heritage.
This also provided a good opportunity for the sharing of knowledge and acquired experiences among professionals and specialists in cultural heritage management, conservation and restoration, the Civil Protection and the National Republican Guard.