Learning from the past and preparing for the future: cases and tools for cultural heritage during disasters

Disasters affecting cultural heritage are one of the greatest threats tohumanity; damaging or irreversibly destroying our collective memory.To increase the efficiency of response by utilizing digital technologies,this dissertation addresses three questions: What lessonscan be learned from the past initiatives about crowdsourcing in culturalheritage during disasters? How do people respond on socialmedia to cultural heritage affected during disasters? How can socialmedia data be used for rapidly evaluating the situation on theground when a disaster affects cultural heritage?The main body of this dissertation is in three distinct parts: thepast, the present and the future. Firstly, to understand the efficientapplication of crowdsourcing in the past, this research analyses thecase of the 1966 Florence Flood. The purpose is to understand people’sresponses and motivations to recuse the cultural heritage damagedby the floods. Secondly, to understand the response to thecultural heritage damaged in present times, this dissertation analyses201,457 tweets (including retweets) and 6,529 images postedon Twitter during the 2015 Nepal earthquake. The purpose is tounderstand the underlying themes and patterns in text and imagesof cultural heritage sites posted on Twitter. Lastly, this dissertationdescribes a method for early detection of disaster-related damage tocultural heritage based on data from social media.The findings of this research suggest that the notion of heritage andthe approach towards heritage is context-dependent. The cases examinedin this dissertation explore two kinds of disasters (flood andearthquake) which tremendously impacted cultural heritage in twodifferent time periods and geographical locations. The difference intime and location provides an in-depth understanding of the overlappingpatterns and the impact of technological changes in people’sresponse. This research contributes to a better understanding of thecrowd and crowdsourcing for cultural heritage during disasters andpromises to aid the experts by providing them with a tool for rapidpost-disaster damage assessment.