The economic benefits of monuments for their surroundings can be estimated by a new tool developed by a team of scientists from ECON MUNI led by Alena Šafrová Drášilová. It is particularly useful for managers and directors of cultural monuments, who can use it to justify investments in reconstruction and preventive measures.
We often hear about the incalculable value of cultural monuments. Is their value really incalculable?
The value of cultural monuments is a hotly debated issue and there are a number of methodological approaches to determining their value published in professional studies. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are not applicable in practice. We looked at the issue of cultural monuments from the outside, that is, through the eyes of the various stakeholders affected by their existence. Simply put, we were not trying to put a price on a thousand-year-old brick, which is really priceless, but we were estimating the financial effect on the surrounding area. Cooperation with foreign partners, including UNESCO, was essential, which allowed us to use real data from various historically valuable sites. Thanks to this, we have developed a freely available tool that can quantify how economically beneficial a particular monument is for its surroundings.
Could you describe how the tool works?
We have identified different groups of people, organizations and businesses that occur around cultural monuments. For each of them, we then determined what financial impact the presence of the monument can have on them. So, if we are talking about a unique church that attracts tourists, filmmakers and research projects, for example, we guide the users of our tool to try to quantify the monument's share of these financial flows. This could be tourist spending on private and public services, the salaries of the people involved in the operation and maintenance of the church, financial support for filmmakers, research grants, taxes paid, or perhaps income from renting out the space. All of this is entered into a clear, user-friendly excel tool.
What data does the tool work with?
It works with historical and current data and predicts future developments. It also takes into account inflation and the predictive value of past data. For example, it is clear that data from the time of the Covid-19 pandemic will not be as relevant for predictions as data from 2023. In the tool, we guide the user through data entry and provide a comprehensive view of the economic impact of the monument in its surroundings.
What is the data on the financial value of a monument useful for?
The protection and sustainability of cultural monuments involves a number of management decisions, sometimes involving very high investments. First and foremost, therefore, we are putting a tool in the hands of managers and operators to demonstrate that a monument generates financial returns in its surroundings. This is particularly important when advocating for costly protection measures and when we need to involve more people, companies or organizations in protection. In addition, with our tool, the user can also model the damage to a monument by a defined disaster and view the financial impact of such an event on different stakeholders.
What cultural monuments appeared in the research and why these?
Our tool was developed thanks to the SHELTER project, which involved not only technical and university partners from all over Europe, but also diverse cultural and natural sites in Europe and Turkey, so that tools and models could be tested in different conditions. It was a truly diverse range of sites – from the church in Ravenna, Italy, with its magnificent mosaics, to the historic cities of Dordrecht in the Netherlands and Seferihisar in Turkey, to the Baixa Limia-Serra Do Xurés National Parks in Galicia and the Sava River Basin running through six countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Each of these locations is vulnerable to a different type of natural disaster.
Why was working with the monuments essential?
The collaboration with the monuments and UNESCO allowed us to test all the tools developed in the SHELTER project in practice. There were a number of them and they mainly addressed the impact of climate change on cultural monuments and their protection. After the primary testing, we presented them at a day-long workshop to representatives of the National Heritage Institute, the Monuments Office of the Slovak Republic and monument managers, who were then made available for free use.
What was the role of the Faculty of Economics and Administration in the project?
Our team created a tool for quantifying the economic benefits of monuments, which we followed up with a tool for processing income and expenditure analysis. This allows us to select from a very broad portfolio of conservation measures those that are relevant for a given monument and compare their costs and benefits.
What threats do you think monuments in the Czech Republic face or will face in the future due to climate change?
Climate change is happening and will happen, but its manifestations vary greatly depending on the location and specific conditions. Natural parks are increasingly encountering heat waves and fires, while urban sites can face torrential rains and floods, severe storms or landslides and soil erosion. Sites vulnerable to earthquakes are a separate chapter. In the Czech Republic, the threats are similar to those elsewhere in the world, although seismically we are a calm location and are not threatened by the sea. However, the climate is not the only source of risk and human activity can also threaten cultural or natural monuments. The SHELTER project has contributed with the solutions it has developed to increase the sustainability and resilience of cultural and natural monuments, whatever the reason for the threat.
The article was written in the framework of project No. 821282 entitled "SHELTER Sustainable Historic Environments Holistic reconstruction through Technological Enhancement and community-based Resilience" funded by Horizon Europe
