Seismic assessment of masonry churches in Matera landscape

Dramatic human and economic consequences are nowadays still resulting from disasters caused by natural phenomena, as in seismic-prone areas, where comprehensive risk management plans for the conservation of cultural property have not been yet completely developed. In particular, earthquakes have destroyed a large amount of cultural heritage in Italy, country which has currently the largest number of World Heritage sites. Matera landscape, located in Southern Italy into a seismic-prone area with moderate seismicity, is characterized by many and important ancient masonry churches, concentrated in The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera, recognized as Cultural World Heritage by UNESCO since 1993. Some masonry churches are evaluated with two simplified procedures for seismic risk assessment, which are based on qualitative and quantitative parameters. Both procedures are complementary and they allow us to define a numeric priority for planning the preventive conservation of the Cultural Property at territorial scale. The qualitative tools aim to identify the main vulnerabilities and hazards for guiding preventive conservation projects, specific studies and risk mitigation. Whereas, the quantitative procedure allows to identify the most vulnerable macro-elements and to plan the retrofitting interventions depending on the assumed reduced nominal life.