Wooden cultural heritage in the Arctic Svalbard and the Alpine regions of mainland Norway is situated in vulnerable ecosystems with high impact from the ongoing climate changes in addition to threats from increased human influence and land use changes. The Arctic will be strongly affected by climate change over the coming decades with in-creasing temperature and precipitation, more extreme weather and significant thawing of the permafrost (Øseth 2010). Alpine regions in Norway are projected to have a similar change (Hanssen-Bauer 2017) with increasing temperature and precipitation. Microorganisms are temperature and moisture dependent, and the impact of climate changes on microcli-matical conditions will extend their period of activity both in Alpine and Arctic ecosystems (Ernakovich et al. 2014). There are hardly any no comprehensive approaches or strategies on how to execute managerial responses and priorities based on the knowledge on project-ed effects of climate change and increased utilisation of the vulnerable Arctic-Alpine cultural heritage environments (Flyen et al. 2020, Hagen et al. 2012). Biological deteriora-tion and wear and tear from tourists and users are hypothesised to reinforce each other and must be addressed to ensure resilience in wooden cultural heritage for the future. The aim of this paper is to present the new project ArcticAlpineDecay that will target these challenges.
Keywords: arctic, alpine, decay, human influence, wood cultural heritage
Authors
Lone Ross
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Norway
Gry Alfredsen
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Norway
Atle Wehn Hegnes
Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, Norway
Johan Mattsson
Mycoteam, Norway
Anne-Cathrine Flyen
Norwegian Institute for Cultural Research, Norway
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