Flood in Florence, 1966: A Fifty-Year Retrospective

Natural Disasters

Florence had flooded many times prior to 1966, although it had been more than four hundred years since a flood of similar magnitude had engulfed Florence. Since 1966, the Arno River has flooded again multiple times—however, on a much smaller scale. Some changes have been implemented to lower the flooding risks. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale de Firenze (BNCF) is once again storing materials in the building’s lower levels, which were most damaged in 1966. Looking to the future and Florence’s capacity to respond to floods, considerably more work is needed to prevent a repeat of what took place in 1966, as noted by a panel convened in Rome in 2015:

The city of Florence is using the fiftieth anniversary commemoration as a focal point for generating attention and action to improve preparedness and planning.[5] Florence, its cultural heritage institutions, and the Italian government must decide how much protection to provide and the level of risk they can accept. This must be balanced by allocating the funding required for implementation and developing a timetable that takes into account the various risk factors.

Major disasters—encompassing flooding, droughts, tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and extreme fires—are products of weather patterns, environmental changes, and, in some cases, human actions. Records of disasters go back millennia and, in a given location, may reoccur on a cyclical basis due to particular risk factors such as communities built on earthquake fault lines or near a river that may overflow with heavy rains. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, “The number of natural disasters has doubled in the past few decades—90 percent of them are weather related.”[6] Over the last few years, very significant worldwide natural disasters have taken place in Nepal, Haiti, India, the United States, Chile, Japan, China, and Italy, to name but a few, causing thousands of deaths and major damage to communities, property, and cultural heritage and billions of dollars in losses.

During the last fifty years, emergency management has developed into its own profession with graduate-level education, research, and specializations, including medicine, fire, and security. Experience and knowledge have increased significantly regarding what is needed to prepare for and respond to a cultural heritage disaster.

A historical review provides information on previous disasters and the potential for future ones; however, not all disasters can be anticipated. Assessing risks,[7] followed by planning and preventive actions, is critical in mitigating damage. Risk assessment and preventive strategies that include application of pertinent building codes, materials, and other mitigation strategies are fundamental to preserving cultural heritage over the long term; however, much is still to be done. Such risk assessment and mitigation activities are being undertaken worldwide more than ever before from the collection and building/site levels to the community and regional levels. Mutual concerns by different entities can support efficiency in achieving needed results. Traditional building materials and styles that have stood the test of time are useful to maintain. Modern materials should be selected carefully for appropriateness in the particular setting. Such cultural heritage support can be cost intensive yet invisible until it is put to the test in an emergency. Therefore, it is sometimes considered “unglamorous” for fund-raising purposes. Analysis to determine the costs of cultural heritage disaster losses provides sobering information and cost-benefit support for allocating resources.[8] Numerous sites of global cultural and religious significance were damaged in the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Those sites that had previously been retrofitted for earthquake resilience came through the quake in much better condition than those without the additional structural support.[9]

In growing numbers, heritage preservation professionals have been reaching out to governmental and community emergency networks to connect in advance of disasters in order to understand each other’s needs and to develop the best methodologies for working together when required. Examples of these efforts include Alliance for Response[10] networks, of which there are currently twenty-six across the US, as well as the United States Federal National Planning System,[11] which includes five frameworks that address cultural heritage as part of their mandates: protection, prevention, mitigation, response, and recovery. The goals of the US State Heritage Emergency Partnership are to “provide strategies to cultivate close working relationships among state agencies, heighten their commitment to protect cultural and historic resources, and increase the sustainability of statewide initiatives that preserve these resources.”[12]

Climate Change: An Inestimable Threat

Climate change poses significant risks to cultural heritage, raising innumerable questions and concerns. There are escalating worries worldwide related to increased sea levels and the growing frequency of extreme weather events that have already been affecting the preservation of cultural heritage—for example, as a result of flooding. Scientific modeling of the rise in sea levels has identified the likely impact on some of the most vulnerable cultural heritage sites.[13] Images of at-risk cultural heritage in Venice, London, India’s Elephanta Island, New York City, and Algiers provide vivid visuals of what future to expect.[14] Even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced significantly over coming decades, extreme weather will continue to increase, as will sea levels, augmenting existing risks and producing new ones, and “the risks of abrupt or irreversible changes increase as the magnitude of the warming increases.”[15] It is likely that the Arno River will flood to the 1966 level or higher much sooner than 350 years from now; historically infrequent flooding events are becoming common in many regions around the world as a result of our changing climate.[16]

London’s Thames River sea barriers were highly advanced when built in 1984 and have proven very effective. Based on the increasing rate of sea level rise and increasingly frequent and heavy rainfalls, however, the existing sea barriers are expected to reach their limits of effectiveness sooner than anticipated. Efforts are under way to determine the additional protections needed to secure London from future flooding. The risks to English heritage are enormous and are being examined at the highest levels of government in order to avoid or minimize the loss of their highly significant cultural treasures. Coastlines are receding at varying rates with a range of effects on cultural heritage. Peter F. Smith notes, however, that the United Kingdom’s largest landowner, the National Trust, “manages some of the most scenic coastal landscape in Britain and has come to the conclusion that some of it will be radically changed or lost . . . because it is no longer possible to hold back the rising seas and coastal erosion.”[17]

The international cultural heritage community has been focusing its attention on climate change and its effects on cultural heritage for some time. A joint report from the World Heritage Centre, its advisory bodies, and a broad group of experts to the thirtieth session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Vilnius in 2006, advanced strategies for addressing the most critical issues: “Experience and lessons learned on addressing Climate Change stress the need for using a number of management responses at national and local levels.”[18] Looking strategically twenty, twenty-five, or thirty years ahead, working toward five- to ten-year objectives, the World Heritage Centre report identifies a number of key elements to be addressed simultaneously, including the following:

1. “If a Management Plan is specifically designed and formatted to foster its use as a working document which can be updated on a regular basis, then it can become a key tool in the effective stewardship of World Heritage sites under threat from Climate Change and actions in response to Climate Change can be flexibly introduced throughout the document.”
2. “No one can work alone in this complex field. Strengthening of existing networks is necessary, along with ensuring that Climate Change issues become a part of the exchange of information within those networks. The environmental effects on cultural heritage such as Climate Change are trans-boundary. At the very least, regional networks need to be strengthened and focused on Climate Change adaptation.”
3. “There is a need for more research on the effects of Climate Change on both the physical heritage and the social and cultural processes that they are a part of.”
4. “The obligation under the World Heritage Convention to develop management systems for World Heritage sites provides an opportunity to integrate Climate Change adaptation measures in the process. Documents such as management plans should include a statement of the objectives necessary for the long-term preservation of the World Heritage sites and its landscape setting, aiming to balance the interests of conservation, public access, and the interests of those who live and work in the area.” Conduct risk and vulnerability assessments.
5. Local, regional, and global public and political support must be developed and expanded well in advance of a crisis.

The following actions are also essential in light of climate change and to prepare for the broad range of emergencies and disasters independent of cause. There is a need to adapt and refine management emergency plans and strategies from the local to regional levels and up. Among the elements needing attention are the following:

1. Enhancement of appropriate education and traditional skills
2. Rigorous ongoing monitoring and maintenance
3. Research to support national/regional decision-making
4. Planning for emergency preparedness
5. Reevaluation of management priorities in response to climate change
6. Training on the various problems and possible responses to climate change in all aspects of conservation activity—namely, development of traditional skills, monitoring, management, and emergency preparedness

Various efforts to adapt to our changing climate are being implemented effectively locally and globally. Climate change, however, is highly complex and its impacts wide ranging. Fully mitigating its effects is now impossible; even with concerted mitigation efforts worldwide, impacts will be widespread. The impacts of climate change, independent of concerted efforts on the 2015 Paris Agreement, will be felt for the foreseeable future; the immediate goal should be to reduce the effects of this baked-in change and to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions such that future changes are minimized.[19] Cultural heritage institutions have a role in mitigating climate change as outlined in the recommendation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014 /SPM 4.1: “Adaptation and mitigation responses are underpinned by common enabling factors. These include effective institutions and governance, innovation and investments in environmentally sound technologies and infrastructure, sustainable livelihoods and behavioural and lifestyle choices.”[20]

Human-Caused Disasters

Cultural heritage loss and disasters occur also as a result of actions by people, not just natural causes. Whether inadvertent or intentional, significant damage can occur from neglect or negligence—for example, by not maintaining infrastructure, security, environmental systems, storage, or plumbing. The Convention concerning the Protection of the World’s Cultural and Natural Heritage, signed in 1972 and implemented in 1975, initiated the international process of designating World Heritage Sites (cultural and natural) under UNESCO to provide accountability and help guard against loss of the world’s most significant sites. World Heritage Sites are identified on the List of World Heritage in Danger with the goal of calling attention to their needs for improvements. Development of the World Heritage Sites list and the Dutch Delta Plan[21] are two significant examples of efforts during the last decades to inventory and assess the needs of cultural heritage on global and national scales, respectively. Such risk assessments are also frequently done at the collection, institutional, or facility level.[22]

Willful destruction of cultural heritage—as a result of arson or vandalism, or for ideological reasons—also takes place. Despite vociferous international pleas to spare them, in March 2001, the supreme Taliban leader in Afghanistan ordered the destruction of the two magnificent and immense Bamiyan Buddhas, which had been carved into the mountain rock 2,700 years ago. The Taliban viewed the destruction as just and important in order to rid Afghanistan of reminders of its idolatrous, non-Islamic past.

Recently in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) damaged and looted 70 percent of the remarkable Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman archaeological site Dura Europos.[23] ISIS has also destroyed ancient statues and devastated other archaeological sites in order to plunder them and sell the artifacts on the black market for their own financial gain. Damage to cultural heritage has long been a casualty of war, whether intentionally or due to a lack of adequate planning, as observed with the looting of thousands of artifacts from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in 2003. Also, for a variety of reasons, wartime strategic goals have not always taken cultural heritage into consideration. Since the 2003 Iraq War, the US Army has developed a guide for soldiers on the protection of cultural property in a wartime environment to improve protection of cultural heritage.[24]

Following World War II, the International Committee of the Blue Shield was established to reduce loss of cultural heritage during war and at other times. According to its website, “The Blue Shield is the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross. It is the symbol specified in the 1954 Hague Convention for marking cultural sites to give them protection from attack in the event of armed conflict.”[25] The International Committee of the Blue Shield “advises and assists in responding to events such as war in former Yugoslavia and hurricane damage in Central America.”[26]

Progress in Addressing Cultural Heritage Emergencies

In the fifty years since the Florence Flood, significant communication advances have yielded faster and greater awareness of global events and their impact, as well as sharing of technology and research. Efforts to discuss and address issues of common interest and concern can be beneficial—and also challenging. More than ever, people are increasingly aware and respectful of cultures, perspectives, and values other than their own, despite the contrary examples of the Taliban and others cited above. Global considerations are interwoven with professional, business, cultural, and political activities more today than ever. Conservation strategies have grown more consistent across the globe, due to various factors including the prominent role that international professional organizations play in facilitating communication and collaboration, the accessibility of more professional literature and training, and increased professional travel.

In 2004, the Heritage Health Index determined that “80 percent of US collecting institutions [did] not have a written emergency/disaster plan that include[d] collections and staff trained to carry it out.”[27] In the last twenty years, cultural heritage organizations in the US and abroad have dedicated considerable resources to raising awareness about the need to plan for tangible cultural heritage emergencies and have served as catalysts and sources for expertise in improving disaster planning and preparedness. These include the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS); American Library Association (ALA); Society of American Archivists (SAA); the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Heritage Preservation, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI); the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC); the five coordinating organizations supporting the International Committee of the Blue Shield—the International Council on Archives (ICA), International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), International Council of Museums (ICOM), International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), and Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Association (CCAAA)—US regional centers; and others. The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) has been offering train-the-trainer programs for professionals in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere with the goal of significantly expanding available expertise for responding to cultural heritage emergencies, particularly in times of crisis.[28] In the US, May Day has been designated as the day that cultural institutions launch staff and public awareness campaigns related to cultural heritage emergency preparedness on behalf of their collections and to assist the public with their personal collections. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the US Council of State Archivists (COSA) launched a widespread and highly effective initiative to train state and local governments on preparing for emergencies and how to respond in order to ensure the preservation of vital records and other holdings.[29] These are examples of some of the initiatives during the last two decades that have significantly furthered disaster preparedness, response, and recovery readiness in the US and globally.

AIC maintains an emergency response team available twenty-four hours per day that has supported regional emergencies in the United States and Haiti. Large cultural heritage institutions—such as the National Archives and Records Administration, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Iowa Libraries, regional conservation centers, and the Library of Congress—have extensive experience in responding to cultural heritage emergencies. Due to a variety of factors, including the age, condition, and location of the facility and the type of emergency affecting it, every cultural heritage emergency presents a unique set of circumstances and requires situation-specific solutions. Each emergency experience, however, builds on those that have come before.

While every disaster is unique, cumulative training and experience continue to improve response and recovery with each event. Today there are far more conservation professionals with the disaster experience and training to take on such challenges than there were in 1966. Over the last fifty years, with the growth of graduate conservation education, the profession has developed significantly. There have been many emergencies that provided opportunities for professionals to get experience in responding to and recovering cultural heritage materials from disasters. Research and experience have also yielded significant advances in disaster response and recovery.

Today’s Florence Floods

Disasters will continue, and likely at a higher rate due to increased threats as a result of climate change. We require ongoing risk assessment, vigilance, preparation, and prioritization. Disaster preparedness is an ongoing activity that is never complete. When it is not possible to prevent a disaster through risk mitigation, it is best to have plans in place to manage it and to reduce the disaster’s impact, its costs, and its long-term implications.[30] Today, we are better prepared and have better tools to address disasters than fifty years ago due to broader awareness and improved communication, increased numbers of trained preservation professionals, and increased investments in emergency planning. As a result of international professional efforts, more disaster planning for cultural heritage has taken place than ever before. Increasingly, the cultural heritage field is working together with civic first responders to understand respective priorities and needs in order to be as effective as possible in the event of a disaster. Activities of professional organizations internationally and nationally provide examples of successful coalitions for preserving cultural heritage worldwide, particularly during disasters. Much work is still to be done to have adequate emergency plans, the necessary technology, protective mechanisms, protocols, infrastructure, and strategies to mitigate the greatest risks. Additionally, it is important to think in terms of establishing priorities; otherwise, resource and time limitations often force ad hoc decisions regarding what can or cannot be done. Any discussion of priority setting is fraught with controversy, because explicit statements about what to save are a conscious acceptance of loss.

Significant progress in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery of cultural heritage has been achieved. Nonetheless, substantial disaster preparedness work is still needed to address large-scale and ongoing threats, including the effects of climate change that will affect cultural heritage in the future. Making disaster preparedness a priority, and committing the resources that it requires, has never been more important. More than ever before, stewards of cultural heritage have the knowledge, tools, strategies, and awareness necessary to make a meaningful difference in planning for, preparing for, and responding to disasters in order to preserve cultural heritage for future generations.

Notes

1. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre defines intangible cultural heritage as “the practices, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and sometimes individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage. Also called living cultural heritage, it is usually expressed in one of the following forms: oral traditions; performing arts; social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship.” “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Intangible Heritage,” UNESCO World Heritage Centre, accessed July 20, 2017, http://whc.unesco.org/en/faq/40.

2. Myron P. Gilmore, “Progress of Restoration in Florence,” Renaissance Quarterly 20 (1967): 100–102; CRIA Committee to Rescue Italian Art, accessed July 16, 2017, http://cria.itatti.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/the-rescue/paper.

3. “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage 2003,” UNESCO, Paris, October 17, 2003, accessed July 6, 2017, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

4. Gunter Bloschl, Gerard Galloway, Marcelo Garcia, Alberto Montanari, Giovanni Seminara, and Luca Solari, Saving a World Treasure: Protecting Florence from Flooding (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2017).

5. Firenze 2016’s goal was “to perform initiatives on the 50th anniversary of the Florence 1966 flood event to resume memories and to improve prevention in such events to protect better in the future people, cultural heritage, environment and economics.” “The Project,” Firenze 2016, accessed July 16, 2017, http://toscana.firenze2016.it/en/the-project/.

6. “Why You Need to Care about Climate Change—Now,” Environmental Defense Fund, accessed July 25, 2017, https://www.edf.org/climate/why-you-need-care-about-climate-change-now.

7. “Risk is often represented as the probability of occurrence of hazardous events or trends multiplied by the magnitude of the consequences if these events occur. Therefore, high risk can result not only from high probability outcomes but also from low probability outcomes with very severe consequences. This makes it important to assess the full range of possible outcomes, from low probability tail outcomes to very likely outcomes.” Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, and L. A. Meyer (eds.), Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report (Geneva: IPCC, 2014), 36, accessed July 25, 2017, http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/ipcc/ipcc/resources/pdf/IPCC_SynthesisReport.pdf.

8. Dilani Dassanayake, Andreas Burzel, and Hocine Oumeraci, “Evaluation of Cultural Losses,” December 10, 2012, accessed July 20, 2017, https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/Medien-DB/hykuxr/43_dassanayake_et_al_xtremrisk_evaluation_of_cultural_losses.pdf.

9. Gunda Achterhold, “About 700 Projects in Asia Alone,” How Germany Ticks Deutschland, April 18, 2016, accessed July 19, 2017, https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/development-dialogue/about-700-projects-in-asia-alone; Randolph Langenbach, “Understanding What Works: Lessons from Earthquake Resistant Traditional Construction,” in Heritage at Risk, Special Edition: Cultural Heritage and Natural Disasters/Risk Preparedness and the Limits of Prevention, ed. Hans-Rudolf Meier, Michael Petzet, and Thomas Will (Munich: ICOMOS, 2007), 87–98, accessed March 18, 2018, https://www.icomos.org/images/Cultural_Heritage_and_Natural_Disasters.pdf.

10. “Alliance for Response,” Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, accessed July 19, 2017, http://www.heritageemergency.org/initiatives/alliance-for-response/afr-home/.

11. “National Planning Frameworks,” Federal Emergency Management Agency, accessed July 19, 2017, https://www.fema.gov/national-planning-frameworks.

12. “State Heritage Emergency Partnership,” Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, accessed July 19, 2017, http://www.heritageemergency.org/initiatives/state-heritage-emergency-partnerships/shep-home/.

13. Ben Marzeion and Anders Levermann, “Loss of Cultural World Heritage and Currently Inhabited Places to Sea-Level Rise,” IOPScience Environmental Research Letters 9 (2014), accessed July 5, 2017, http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/3/034001/pdf.

14. Sara Kramer, “Five Priceless Locations That Are Slowly Drowning under Water,” Business Insider, May 25, 2016, accessed July 5, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/rising-oceans-locations-under-water-2016-5/#1-venice-1.

15. Climate Change 2014, 16.

16. European Parliament, “Policy Department Economic and Scientific Policy: Climate Change and Natural Disasters: Scientific Evidence of a Possible Relation between Recent Natural Disasters and Climate Change: (IP/A/ENVI/FWC/2005–35),” accessed July 25, 2017, http://ecologic.eu/sites/files/project/2013/Brief_CC_and_natural_disasters_scientific_evidence_of_relation_Jan_2006_EP_version.pdf.

17. Peter F. Smith, Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: A Race against Time, chapter 5, “Predictions for the UK” (New York: Routledge, 2014).

18. May Cassar, Christopher Young, Tony Weighell, David Sheppard, Bastian Bomhard, and Pedro Rosabal, in collaboration with the World Heritage Centre and its Advisory Bodies, Predicting and Managing the Effects of Climate Change on World Heritage, updated to account for the suggestions of the group of experts during the Meeting on Climate Change and World Heritage, held at UNESCO headquarters on the March 16 and 17, 2006 (Vilnius, Lithuania: UNESCO, 2006), accessed July 6, 2017, http://whc.unesco.org/document/6670.

19. “The Paris Agreement,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, accessed July 24, 2017, http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php.

20. “SPM 4.1,” IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014, 26, accessed July 25, 2017, http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/ipcc/ipcc/resources/pdf/IPCC_SynthesisReport.pdf.

21. Gerrit De Bruin, “An Assessment of Deltaplan: The Dutch National Preservation Strategy,” Liber Quarterly 14:356–67.

22. Robert Waller, “Risk Management Applied to Preventive Conservation,” in Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, A Preventive Conservation Approach, ed. C. L Rose, C. A. Hawks, and H. H. Genoways (Iowa City: Storage of Natural History Collections, 1995), 21–28, accessed July 24, 2017, http://www.museum-sos.org/docs/WallerSPNHC1995.pdf.

23. Deborah Amos and Alison Meuse, “Via Satellite, Tracking the Plunder of Middle East Cultural History,” radio program, All Things Considered: National Public Radio, March 10, 2015, accessed July 16, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/10/392077801/via-satellite-tracking-the-plunder-of-middle-east-cultural-history.

24. Headquarters, Department of the Army, “GTA 41-01-002,” Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives, August 2009, accessed July 21, 2017, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/gta41-01-002_arts_monuments_and_archives.pdf.

25. “ICOM and the International Committee of the Blue Shield,” International Council of Museums (ICOM), accessed July 16, 2017, http://archives.icom.museum/emergency.html.

26. The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) addresses the needs of museums, archives, libraries, monuments, and sites. It draws on the expertise, capabilities, and international networks of the five organizations sponsoring cultural heritage organizations. “ICOM and the International Committee of the Blue Shield: The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS): Working for the Protection of the World’s Cultural Heritage,” accessed July 16, 2017, http://archives.icom.museum/emergency.html. Also see Blue Shield International, http://www.ancbs.org/cms/en/home2.

27. Heritage Health Index, A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections (Washington, DC: Heritage Preservation and Institute of Museum and Library Services, 2005), 62–63, American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, accessed July 19, 2017, http://www.conservation-us.org/docs/default-source/hhi/hhifull.pdf.

28. See course: “First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (FAC),” ICCROM, accessed March 18, 2018, https://www.iccrom.org/news/first-aid-cultural-heritage-times-crisis.

29. “Emergency Preparedness,” Council of State Archivists, accessed July 14, 2017, https://www.statearchivists.org/programs/emergency-preparedness/.

30. Rohit Jigyasu, “Building Resilience by Reducing Disaster Risks to Cultural Heritage,” Prevention Web, accessed July 20, 2017, http://www.preventionweb.net/experts/guest/collection/44401.