Adapting Cultural Heritage to Climate Change: The contribution of the Institute of Historical Research and European initiatives

On 9 March 2026, at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece’s National Strategy for the protection of monuments from climate change was unveiled – a nationwide initiative to which the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) contributes decisively through its Institute of Historical Research (IHR).

In his keynote intervention, Professor Dimosthenis Sarigiannis, Director and Chairman of the Board of NHRF, highlighted the Foundation’s distinctive role: transforming historical archives, Byzantine and medieval sources, archaeological data, inscriptions and old maps into operational, site-specific knowledge for heritage management. Within the framework of a programmatic agreement with the Ministry of Culture and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, historians and archaeologists of the IHR, under the guidance of Dr. Sophia Zoumbaki, examined 19 selected sites – from Delos and Vravrona to Dion, Delphi, Zominthos and Olympia – documenting long-term hazards including floods, fires, coastal erosion, landslides and sediment burial.

The central message was unambiguous: resilience is a matter of governance, not fate. The case of Olympia, with recurrent floods of the Alpheios and Kladeos rivers across centuries, demonstrates that consistent maintenance, clear institutional responsibilities and the integration of the wider landscape perimeter of monuments (as defined by Law 3028/2002) are the decisive factors for long-term survival.

The national strategy is being scaled through European tools and research infrastructures in which NHRF is actively engaged: ENVESOME, URBANOME, EIRENE-RI and the Global Exposome Forum – providing AI -enabled decision-support systems, harmonized monitoring protocols, and a framework for international comparative assessment of Greek heritage sites.