Conserving ruined masonry: managing water regimes to enhance resilience in the face of changing environmental conditions

英国遗产和其他国家和国际组织负责管理大量脆弱的废墟，这些废墟在过去经常受到复杂的管理和保护干预。遗址包括重要的考古遗址和用砖石建造的历史建筑，这将是本项目的重点。水是这些废墟恶化的主要原因，有效管理流过废墟及其内部的水对保护这些废墟至关重要。该项目旨在通过管理水流入和流出建筑物，对保存和保护砖石遗址的不同战略进行全面和平衡的评价，以便提供更好的了解和指导。通过将实地和实验室方法与数值模拟和监测相结合，该项目将能够开发一种新的、高度适用的工具包，专门用于评估被摧毁的砖石结构的脆弱性。这种方法将为英国遗产和其他组织提供一个有用的决策工具，以评估面对未来气候变化的保护选择。这将确保废墟能够得到更具成本效益的保护，并更能适应不断变化的环境条件。该项目有三个目标，这三个目标将由研究的不同要素加以解决。目标一是审查目前或潜在的保护策略来管理受损砖石结构中的水分运动。将通过从现有的已出版和未出版的文件中收集信息、实地考察和采访保护专业人员来解决这一问题。第二个目标是收集目标一中确定的最有希望的保护策略的可靠数据，重点可能是硬封顶和指点等“硬”技术。将通过开发和部署创新的实地监测和数据收集方法来解决这一问题，以显示保护战略如何影响废墟上和废墟内的水流。数据收集的重点将是牛津大学威瑟姆森林现场的四堵定制测试墙，这是在之前的一个联合项目中与历史英格兰大学合作建造的。第三个目标是探索创新的数值模拟方法，以测试环境条件变化对硬封顶与其他保护策略的性能的影响。这将通过利用项目前两部分的调查结果为数值模拟提供信息来解决。该模型将允许模拟比仅从现场监测获得的更广泛的气候条件，在可能的未来气候情景下测试不同的保护策略。该项目将提供科学和现场证据，帮助该部门保护这一重要的建筑遗产要素。研究问题包括：1.管理废弃砖石结构中水分进出的潜在保护干预措施是什么，它们的优点和弱点是什么？2.对各种类型的废弃砖石建筑的保护干预措施(特别是硬封顶和尖端等硬干预措施)如何影响水流状况(特别是水的进出)？3.如何优化保护干预措施，以确保在未来50-100年的预测未来环境条件下获得最佳结果？该项目将与英国遗产和历史英格兰共同开展。该项目属于AHRC优先研究区域4。该提案涉及AHRC的两个关键主题，即遗产管理(文化和博物馆研究一级专题中的二级专题)和考古(一级专题)。

English Heritage and other national and international organisations look after a huge number of vulnerable ruins which have often been subjected to complex management and conservation interventions in the past. Ruins include important archaeological sites and historic buildings constructed of masonry which will be the focus of this project. Water is the major agent of deterioration of these ruins, and effective management of water flowing over and within them is vital for their conservation. The project aims to provide a full and balanced evaluation of different strategies to conserve and protect masonry ruins through managing water movements into and out of the structures in order to provide better understanding and guidance. By combining field and laboratory methods with numerical modelling and monitoring, this project will enable the development of a new, highly applicable toolkit, tailored to assessing the vulnerability of ruined masonry. This approach will provide English Heritage and other organisations with a useful decision making tool for evaluating conservation options in the face of future climatic change. This will ensure that ruins can be more cost-effectively conserved and are more resilient to changing environmental conditions. The project has three objectives which will be addressed by different elements of the research. Objective one is to review what conservation strategies are currently or potentially available for managing moisture movement in ruined masonry. This will be addressed by collection information from existing published and unpublished documents, site visits and interviews with conservation professionals. The second objective is to collect robust data on the most promising conservation strategies identified in objective one, with a likely focus on 'hard' techniques such as hard capping and pointing. This will be addressed by developing and deploying innovative field monitoring and data collection methods to show how the conservation strategies influence water flow over and within ruins. The focus of data collection will be four bespoke test walls at the University of Oxford's Wytham Woods field site, built in collaboration with Historic England during a previous joint project. The third objective is to explore innovative numerical modelling methods to test the influence of changing environmental conditions on the performance of hard capping vs other conservation strategies. This will be addressed through using the findings from the first two parts of the project to inform numerical modelling. The modelling will allow a much wider range of climatic conditions to be simulated than can be gained from field monitoring alone, testing different conservation strategies under likely future climatic scenarios. The project will provide scientific and site-based evidence to help the sector conserve this important element of the built heritage. Research questions include:1. What are the potential conservation interventions for managing moisture ingress and egress in ruined masonry, and what are their strengths and weaknesses? 2. How do conservation interventions for ruined masonry of various types (especially 'hard' interventions like hard capping and pointing) influence water flow regimes (particularly ingress and egress of water)? 3. How can conservation interventions be optimised to ensure the best results under predicted future environmental conditions over the coming 50-100 years?This project will be undertaken in collaboration with both English Heritage and Historic England.This project falls within the AHRC Priority Research Area 4. The proposal addresses two key themes of the AHRC remit, i.e. heritage management (a level two theme within the level one theme of cultural and museum studies) and archaeology (a level one theme).