Routledge Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Management

This Handbook provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the intersections between cultural heritage and disaster risks.

Rohit Jigyasu is a conservation architect and risk management professional from India, currently working at ICCROM as Project Manager on Urban Heritage, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management. Rohit served as UNESCO Chair holder professor at the Institute for Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, where he was instrumental in developing and teaching International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage. He was the elected President of ICOMOS-India from 2014-2018 and president of ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Risk Preparedness (ICORP) from 2010-2019. Rohit served as the Elected Member of the Executive Committee of ICOMOS since 2011 and was its Vice President from 2017-2020. Before joining ICCROM, Rohit has been working with several national and international organizations such as UNESCO, UNISDR, Getty Conservation Institute and World Bank for consultancy, research and training on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage.

Ksenia Chmutina is a Professor of Disaster Studies at the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering at Loughborough University. Her research focuses on the processes of urban disaster risk creation and systemic implications of sustainability and resilience in the context of neoliberalism. Her research interests also include narratives and framings of disasters, intersectionality and vulnerability, and interlinkages between critical urban studies, cultural heritage, and disaster studies. A core part of her activities is science communication: she is a co-host of a popular podcast ’Disasters: Deconstructed’. Ksenia uses her work to draw attention to the fact that disasters are not natural.