Transitional environments and heritage protection: a decisional roadmap for the Saracen towers in the Amalfi coast

SERENA VIOLA, DONATELLA DIANO, TERESA NAPOLETANO, CLAUDIA CIOCIA
Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

The proposal refers to the international scientific debate on climate changes in terms of impact on built heritage and local communities due to temperature increase, change in relative humidity, increase in wind velocity, change in sun radiation, change in precipitation. Referring to a multidisciplinar approach, climate effects are investigated with the aim of defining appropriate strategies for adjusting human settlement characters in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli.

Borrowing the adopted terminology from the ecological culture, the paper introduces the definition of transitional environments as ecotopos, where biotic composition and ecological processes have been assuming a special acceleration due to natural forces and/or human action dynamic impacts. Global warming is supposed to cause a general overlaping of the predictable and intrinsic changes to the climate consequences. Transitional environments are investigated under an holistic approach, integrating multidisciplinar competences in order to outline the reciprocal climate change relapses on distinguishing features.

The paper takes into account built heritage located in transitional environment; it deals with the specific obsolescence processes, investigating the interaction of climate changes impact on heritage conservation and promotion strategies in terms of public awareness and engagement. The paper focouses on the Saracen towers in the Amalfi region. This coastal strip, inscribed on the World heritage List since 1997, is assumed as an outstanding example of a transitional environment for its physical, social, and economic features. Taking into account transitional heritage characters of identity, the paper refers about a research experience aimed at facing the climate change threat with the help of a net of priviledged observation points. The Saracen towers (more than forty along fifty km of coast), once built up to watch the seas, are assumed as survey points and become a fundamental junction in a integrated monitoring process. A decisional roadmap for heritage protection against rising sea levels risks and cultural tourism promotion, has been worked out by a group of experts from the Architecture Faculty of Naples and the Sovrintendenza ai Beni Architettonici e Ambientali di Salerno, relating social, physical, economical dynamics to appropriate and adaptive technologies aimed at impacts prevention and moderation.